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!