Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Making Progress on a Project

I have been a bad blogger lately. I have been distracted and unable to sit down and concentrate on writing a decent blog and I haven't had any time in I don't know how long to visit anyone elses blog. Shame on me.

I have been engrossed in a project. In fact, I've recently realized that I am obsessed with having projects. If I don't have one big thing going one, I create something else. For example, this year I didn't have my regular Halloween Party, which makes one think I would have a lot of extra time on my hands....but that was not the case at all. Since I didn't have the Halloween party occupying all of my time, I came up with another project. We had a jumbo fundraiser instead. We had over 130 people here, and raised a ton of money for our 3 Day walk team...once that was over, I concentrated on our anniversary cruise. Anniversary cruise done? Check. Time to dive into becoming the new Love on a Leash Chapter leader for the newly created San Diego Central Chapter. That doesn't involve much, only coordinating members and visits and setting up new facilities, and observing new members and signing off on paperwork and setting up facility calendars and...and...and....of course that's in addition to the three times weekly therapy visits Kona and I make, and my Golden Retriever Meetup group....which now is hovering near 920 members. That doesn't take much time either...only answering about 40-50 emails a day, setting up meetups, perusing the message boards, approving (and declining) new member requests, coming up with new ideas for meetups, posting pictures of past meetups, and playing referee between members sometimes. Oh, if I were only paid for all of the volunteer hours I put in I would be a rich, rich woman...but, I like to remind myself that even if I don't get financial compensation for all of that, I am rewarded in so many other ways....


My newest project has been transforming Pickle's old bedroom into a guest room. When Bear moved out, Pickle migrated to Bear's old room. It is a bit bigger, and had a cooler, more "grown up" feel to it. Pickle's room had been a very cute, very colorful young girl's room. With white walls on the top half and purple on the bottom, a "love" and peace sign border topped off the pink, purple theme. It really was the perfect room for her - 4 or 5 years ago. She was over it. She cleaned it out, and moved on, and I was left with a white and purple room. That's tough to make into an adult guest room. Hence, a new project for me.


I spent a good amount of time looking for a decent picture of what it looked like before. I didn't have much luck. My computer crashed a while back, and I lost a TON of pictures. The pictures of Pickle's room when we initially did it must have been in that batch. Here is one where you can get just a peak at what it used to look like. Suffice it to say that it was a typical girl's room with posters and pictures covering most of the wall space and lots of "stuff" crammed into it. So, once it was cleaned out, it looked like this....
Here it is after two coats of primer on the bottom to cover the purple.

Here it is with the top half re-painted the original ivory color, and the bottom with the new "Cup of Cocoa" color...I think they miss-named it though...
I think they should have called this color "Mickey D's Mocha" - I knew there was a reason I liked it so much!
So, I've been making good progress on this, and hope to have it nearly finished off by tomorrow evening. I've got to finish the baseboards, and touch up a few spots here and there. I also need to swap out the ugly beige electrical outlets with some new ivory ones. I ordered a bed which is getting delivered tomorrow afternoon, so I don't have any time to waste! Nothing like cutting it close! Hopefully I'll have pictures of the finished product tomorrow night.


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Puppy Jail

I am working on painting the guest room. It's taking WAY longer than I want it to.

The dogs want to help.

I seriously DO NOT need their help.

Therefore, they have been banned to "puppy jail."


I might parole them when I'm done for the evening.

Might.

Back to painting now. Yay for me.


Nine Days and a Wake-Up

Yup, I'm down to single digits now. YIKES! In just a little over 9 days I'll be one the 3 Day walk! HOLY MOLY! What have I gotten myself into? I am mentally ready...but I'm not sure about the physical part. I was doing great on the training for a long while, but I have to admit I've let it slip a bit these last weeks. Life sometimes has a way of taking over, and I've found myself without the time to do what I should be doing. No excuse, I know, but I'm just telling it like it is.

This passed Saturday I was supposed to walk an 18 mile training walk. I simply didn't have time. With my Mom out of town, I needed to make three visits to my Dad's house to be sure he got his insulin on time, got to his dialysis appointment on time, etc. That was my priority, and that's what I did. I tried my best to get a decent walk in, but even with starting long before it was light, there were only so many miles I could walk before I had to be on the road to his house.

We did have a nice 8 mile walk though, which certainly beats nothing. We started in the dark...




and saw a beautiful, glorious sunrise.
It was truly spectacular!
There were not a lot of other people out walking that early!
And we even saw some dolphins! There was a whole pod playing in the waves. You can see one come out of the water at the 19 sec. mark.

It was a lovely way to start an otherwise very busy day.

On a side note, I just wanted to share something VERY exciting with you all. I am thrilled to say that I have reached well above and beyond my fundraising goal of $2500. As of today, I have raised a whopping $3,300! How awesome is that? HUGE thanks go out to each and everyone of you who has been able to help me reach this incredible amount! I am, in the words of my friend Chris, Gobsmacked!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

More updates soon!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Alive and Well...

I really am! Oh my gosh, where do I begin? To say that I have been busy is an understatement. I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again...sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day.

My poor, neglected blog...my poor neglected readers! My poor neglected son AJ! I make a big to-do on my blog about Bear's birthday, and his was two days later, and I've yet to write about it. Shame on me!

So, let's begin there.

My boy turned 18 on the 4th. Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday that my little mini "Ross Perot" was born! We called him that because just the day before he was born Bill Clinton defeated George Bush, Sr., and H.Ross Perot in the presidential election. Ross Perot was bald and had big ears...this was AJ's new born picture...
...enough said.

Anywho...it was a bit of a crazy day last Thursday. I took my Mom to the airport at the crack of dawn for her flight to Dallas to visit with my brother. That meant that the care of my Dad rested squarely with me. Don't get me wrong, Dad is doing GREAT but he still needs help with his three daily insulin injections, rides to dialysis, etc. Mixing that up with a young man's 18th birthday was not easy.


I asked AJ what he wanted to do, and he said, "Go gambling." Go gambling? What? Well, sure enough there are some local Indian casinos that allow 18 year olds, and he was itching to go. Well, I thought to myself, why not? He had some cash, he is a very sensible kid, and he is 18. So...off we went! We took Bear with us, dropped of Pops at dialysis, and went on our way. With out getting into too much detail, I will say that AJ had beginner's luck. Plenty of it. He says he had the Midas touch. It was luck, trust me. We had a great time, AJ walked out with over $200 more than when he walked in, and everyone was happy.


The evening was finished up with a great pizza dinner, awesome marzipan cake, and some fun gifts along with plenty more cash. 18 year old boys are easy...at least mine is!





I am just so thankful and proud to have such a great boy young man!

I promise to catch up more SOON! So much to talk about, so little time to blog!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Golden Halloween Party

Big thanks to Meeka's Mom for letting me share this with you all!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Birthday Fun

Bear's Birthday was a total blast yesterday. She and I started the day off in style. After we voted, we spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon at the La Costa Spa. We'd never been there before, and it was incredible!

The grounds there are gorgeous, and we had PERFECT weather!





We had massages, and spent time after that relaxing. There was this indoor spa, a steam room, a sauna, private lounging area....

beautiful out door dipping pool (with the temp kept at a very comfortable 85F)

and this awesome "roman shower" which was a huge flow of very warm water. It felt like you were sitting under a warm waterfall, and it felt so good on your neck and shoulders.


The whole area was just great!


We enjoyed a wonderful lunch too!

And then lounged some more!
It was a great way to spend the day! But our fun wasn't over yet.
We went to our favorite restaurant (Morton's Steakhouse) for dinner with the whole family. As always, we were treated like royalty!

Morton's, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways....
#1. Crab cakes
#2. Chopped Salad with your perfect Bleu Cheese dressing...
#3. Fillet Mignon with garlic green beans, hash browns, creamed spinach, asparagus, onion rings, sauteed mushrooms....
#4. Chocolate Lava cake
#5. after dinner cocktails....

It is true love, indeed! After dinner it was time to open presents. Sometimes good things come in BIG packages! Bear got a new TV from my folks! She was VERY surprised. This will be perfect for her new place!
Here are a couple of silly videos of Bear goofing around!

It was a great day, full of fun, great food, and great people.

Tomorrow we'll be celebrating again - AJ turns 18! All I can say is THANK GOODNESS that Hubby started his new job on Monday, and we can afford to pay for all of this fun!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Happy Birthday Bear!

Today Bear turns 24! Yikes! 24! Where have the years gone?


Bear was due to be born on Oct. 18th. She was late....15 days late! I remember Nov. 2, 1986 like it was yesterday! I'd eaten Italian food the night before. My tummy rumbled all night. I woke up just after 5am to use the bathroom, and realized my water had broke. And then the fun started!


She was born at 5:16pm. 8lbs., 2 oz., 20" long.

My first baby. A sweet, angel of a girl. Still to this day, she is the same. There aren't enough words to explain what she brought to my life. She made me a Mom, helped me grow up, and taught me so much.

It's on days like this that I really, truly realize how blessed I am.

Happy Birthday Bear! I can't wait to spend the day with you!