As expected, I didn’t accomplish nearly as much as I had planned this weekend. But I did get many things done…and had two great lunches both days!

On Saturday I had lunch with Vanessa at the Stonefire Grill where we enjoyed great tri-tip, chicken and ribs. Spent a lot of the day after Vanessa left talking with relatives–Kevin, Sally, Kelly and Tom. Oh, and I also finished up my Christmas shopping at Kohl’s! That was great in that I got lots of deals, some of which were clothes for me! The sales at Kohl’s were really, really good and it wasn’t too terribly crowded. I only had to wait in line for about 5 minutes.

On Sunday Patrick and Veronica came over and we went to the cemetery to take flowers and a wreath for Mike’s grave…a tradition every year. After cleaning/polishing the headstone–and marveling at the many tacky decorations scattered about Forest Lawn–we headed home. Since all of us were hungry, we decided to stop for lunch at Gin Sushi. Patrick and Veronica ate lots and lots of sushi while I had tempura and some teriyaki chicken. All was quite yummy!

After playing with the kittens, Patrick helped me track down a burned out light in one of the strings on the front of the house, and then I spent a few hours finishing up the decorations on the front porch–garland, wreaths and bows. Got all the crates back in the garage (finally!) and then headed to the grocery for all the fixings for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Don’t have to do too much cooking for either, so I was back before darkness set in.

I also had a very brief conversation with my neighbor to the north, advising him that his wooden fence was collapsing into my yard even though I was sure he already knew this. He said he would repair it this week. (I’ll believe that when I see it!) Meanwhile, just to be on the safe side, I removed all the brick caps that I placed on top of the concrete retaining wall underneath the fence. I can’t trust this guy to not pick up the bricks and throw them into my yard since he ripped out my iceplant that was growing there the last time he repaired the fence. I’ll give him until the end of the year to get the fence fixed. After that I’m calling the city.

Well, time to start in on cleaning–and maybe even a bit of baking. Should be able to get at least one or two batches of magic cookie bars done tonight!