To be fair, January is the busiest month of the year for me at work. I felt like doing nothing when I’d get home from work at night so could only work on the cleanup/packup on the weekends. And I’ve had other things going on this month as well. So I’ve decided to cut back on the decorating next year to save myself all this stress. Still don’t have the house itself back to ‘normal.’ I packed up lots of the carnival glass and other chatchki’s and still need to get all that stuff back out.

Went to the Lakers/Mavericks game with Vanessa on MLK Day and had a great time…especially since the Lakers won! It was Vanessa’s first Lakers game which added to the enjoyment of the game. Tickets game from Patrick’s company and they have upgraded the seats this year to the premium seating area complete with waiters to take our drink and snack orders!

On Sunday Vanessa took me to see ‘Wicked’ at the Pantages Theatre. All I can say is WOW! What a fabulous Christmas/Birthday gift from Vanessa! We got home and I found a vase filled with a dozen red roses on the dining room table along with a Kohl’s gift card from Patrick! Later that night Kevin and Soula sent me a video of Robin saying “Happy Birthday, Grandma”! All in all it was one of the best birthdays I’ve had in a long time! Thanks everyone!

Over the past week, I’ve spent close to $1,400 clearing out my medical spending account. My dentist under estimated the cost of a dental procedure last year so I had lots of $$$ remaining to be spent by the end of the plan year. Unfortunately the plan no longer allows me to purchase OTC meds, so I had to get creative. I purchased a year’s worth of contacts, 2 pairs of glasses, 8 bottles of contact lens solution, 7 bottles of eyeglass cleaner, 6 first aid kits, 10 boxes of bandaids and a thermometer! And I still have $46 remaining to be spent! Not having nearly as much money going into the account this year–mostly just enough to cover co-pays for my doctor’s appointments and Rx’s. Will be nice to have a little bit more money in my paycheck.

Not much new with the cats. Now that all the Christmas decorations are down, they are once again learning to be content with playing with the cat toys. They are enjoying going outside more often as the days are getting longer. Additionally, the weather has been so nice and warm and they spend most weekends outside. I’m sure they won’t be happy when I head for Seattle on 2/23 and they have to stay indoors for 10 days.

Three more weeks and I’ll have another grandson. It hardly seems possible that another baby will be born in just a few weeks. I know it’s seemed a lot longer to Soula, but the time went by quickly for me. Kevin is still looking for work. Had one interview with Amazon but that proved to be a bust. He is collecting unemployment. Thankfully he got quite a bit of vacation/severance pay from his other job so they are not in dire straits financially right now.

Time to shut it down tonight. I really do need to do these updates more often than once a month!

Patrick, Vanessa and Keith came over on Christmas Eve and we snacked on pulled pork sliders and various other small goodies while playing Trivial Pursuit. Christmas Day’s menu was prime rib, roasted potatoes, green bean casserole, waldorf salad and rolls. The prime rib was spectacular (Paula Deen’s recipe) and we (Patrick, Vanessa and Keith) filled ourselves to overflowing with beef!

Patrick and I didn’t head off to Forest Lawn until Christmas morning which worked out okay as the traffic was extremely light. We took our usual wreath and poinsettia plant to Mike’s grave and, once again, marveled at all the tacky decorations on lots of the other graves. It was a beautiful day, though, and somehow it seemed a bit less tacky than in years past.

I’ve spent most of the remainder of my time off talking with family and just laying around. I just can’t get motivated to do much else. This crud in my head and chest has really been a downer and I’m ready for it to be over!

I did miss seeing Robin this year. He’s old enough to understand all about Santa and was excited beyond belief! Maybe next year…

So the decorations will stay up for another few days and I’ll start putting it all away on Friday. Have to go to work tomorrow and Thursday, and then am off again for another 4 days as the Rose Parade madness begins. Not looking forward to that craziness at all!!!

About 10 days before Thanksgiving I bit the bullet and had all my citrus trees trimmed back as well as having one taken out completely. It was a large tangelo tree that was intermingled among the power lines leading to my house as well as to my neighbor’s. I didn’t like the tree to begin with and worried that Santa Ana winds could cause power problems if a branch fell. So I spent the $$$ and had it done. I was happy to see the result and it is much, much easier to keep that side of the house clean. Plus I won’t have the neighborhood squirrel (or rats) eating fruit and dropping the remains all over the ground.

The following week my pool man informed me that four of the pool filters were cracked and needed to be replaced. Great. Another unexpected cost. He took care of it and my pool looked great after a thorough cleaning and filtering through the new equipment.

Not sure of the exact date, but I think it was the week before Thanksgiving that I saw Soula’s post on G+ saying that she had been in a head-on collision! Turned out that she was okay…and the baby is okay as well. Some woman was not paying attention and plowed directly into Soula as she waited in the left turn lane to go into the grocery. Their car sustained $6000 worth of damage and is still in the shop being repaired. Thank God it was only the car that was damaged.

Thanksgiving was very nice…the calm before the storm, literally! We had a traditional dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, ambrosia fruit salad and pumpkin pie. Enjoyed staying at home (and not out shopping) for the entire weekend. Did a lot of talking with family in other parts of the country, relaxed and started to prepare the house inside and out for Christmas decorating. I had considered starting in on the outdoor decorations, but just ran out of time which turned out to be a good thing.

On the following Wednesday, 11/30, all hell broke loose!!! Weather reports predicted high Santa Ana winds that night, so I checked the backyard and gathered up any pool toys and any other loose items sitting around. Folded down the patio chairs and put the cover on the grill. I wasn’t worried about much else since Patrick had tied down my shade structure to rebar posts that he had pounded into the ground and we rebuilt my fence with super heavy duty steel posts on which the wood was mounted.

At about 8:30 pm Patrick called to ask if it was windy at my house. I was in my office on the computer plus had the tv on and hadn’t been paying attention. And then I looked outside where the winds were pummeling everything in sight! The tarp covering for the shade structure had torn, but the steel poles were still in place. The grill cover had blown off (I retrieved it) and a few other things had blown around, but only the tarp was damaged. When I checked again about 45 min later, the winds were blowing harder than I’ve ever seen and the steel support poles were moving toward the pool. After a phone call, Patrick was here to take down the structure as much as possible and keep it out of the pool. It was all both of us could do to keep from blowing over ourselves! About 1/2 hour after he left my neighbor’s fence (to the north) went down into my yard. Helped him get it up and laying flat on his property. And then tried to get some sleep. Right. The winds blew all night and at times it felt as though the house was moving. The cats were scared to death and surrounded me on the bed. Every time a loud gust would hit, they would all go flying into the air. Needless to say it was not a restful night. I was scared, too.

I had a meeting at work the next day at 7 am. Had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. Boy was I right. The damage was unbelievable. The steel supports for my fence were bent and the fence was leaning at about a 45 degree angle into my neighbor’s yard to the south. A front fence panel next to my garage was completely blown down. The shade structure tarp was literally shredded and patio furniture, flower pots, etc rested at the bottom of the pool along with tons of leaves and branches. Most of the bushes, shrubs and trees in my yard were no more than naked branches denuded of all their leaves and flowers. And then there was the front and the street.

A number of trees along the curb were uprooted and laying in the street completely blocking it. And there were branches down everywhere! I’ve never seen such destruction. It looked like a bomb had gone off! Reports were than the winds blew through at a rate of 90-100 mph!!! Someone finally cleared a path down the street and I was able to go to work around 10 am. Trying to get there was unbelievable. Turns out Pasadena was one of the hardest hit areas and my street was just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many blocked streets that a normal 15 minute drive to work took about 45 min. There were trees down on houses and cars, and lots of people had no power. I was extremely lucky to have suffered no damage that altered my life all that much. And, BTW, I was sooo glad I took out that tangelo tree!

I took the following Friday off work and spent the day cleaning up the backyard. My gardener came on Thursday and cleaned up lots of the leaves and small branches from the front yard. Also called in an insurance claim and got a fence company out to give me an estimate. Fortunately my deductible is only $500 so it won’t be too costly to get the damage repaired. All in all between the tree pruning, the pool filters and the insurance deductible, I’ll have spent in excess of $1000–not something I would have planned for November/December just before Christmas.

Had hoped to get my Christmas decorations up that weekend, but predictions of more wind made that impossible. I did a bit of inside decorating with what little time remained after working outdoors for most of the weekend. And then it was back to work. The city cleanup has progressed slowly so that every day I’ve had to find an alternate route to work to avoid the cleanup crews or the electric repair crews.

The following Saturday (12/10) was the date our annual neighborhood Light-Up was scheduled to begin. And I still had no lights or any other decorations up on my house. Patrick came over on Saturday afternoon and helped me put up the street decoration and we got it lit up for that evening. Then we had two parties to attend–Vanessa’s Open House in the afternoon and the Dreamhost Office Party (where Patrick works) that evening at the Disneyland Hotel. Vanessa’s party was great and we were sorry to leave. The Dreamhost party started at 6 pm so we felt we’d get there in plenty of time by leaving Vanessa’s at 5:15. Except we hadn’t counted on that traffic accident on the 57 fwy. It took us TWO HOURS to get to Disneyland!!! While the party was great (the food was fantastic!), I was just too exhausted to really enjoy it. I was grateful to finally get home that night.

Still had to put up the lights on the house and hedge on Sunday. Got up early and got everything up except for the icicle lights on the roof. Patrick came over and helped with that and finished everything just before dark. I was beat. About an hour later I walked outside only to realize that all the lights on the house were out. Apparently we hooked up too many strings to one circuit and blew a fuse in one of the strings. The lights on the garage and the hedge were still on, so I have some decorations but I need to wait until I have some daylight hours to figure out where the fuse is blown and also hook up part of the lights to another circuit.

It couldn’t get any worse than all this now, could it?! Oh yes, the worst is yet to come…

Kevin lost his job today. His company is going out of business and he will be without a job within the next few weeks, if not sooner. I guess he’ll get all the details tomorrow. Not a good situation at any time, but especially right before Christmas and with your wife about 7 months pregnant with your second child! In addition, Raymond, the guy who lives with them also works with Kevin meaning he lost his job as well.

2011 is certainly going out with a bang.

I worked in the yard yesterday doing a bunch of trimming. We had a huge rainstorm last Wednesday (it was great!) and a number of the branches on my bushes were pulled down almost to the ground. It was impossible to move around one end of the pool–meaning the pool guy couldn’t clean when he comes on Wednesday. So I had to get busy. While I could have done more, I completely filled the yard waste can and didn’t want to leave a mess for the gardener. So other trimming will have to wait for another nice weekend when the temps are back down in the 70′s-80′s. The backyard does look nice, though.

The cats have been loving the outdoors this weekend. Nate and Sophie were out most of the day and Hayes has been in and out. Poor Mitsy still has to stay inside until she gets spayed. I expect that will happen on the 18th, so she should be able to go out toward the end of the month. We’ll see how she does. I’ve been very lucky that the others come inside when called. I’m hoping she follows after the others…

Meanwhile, Nate is still having medical problems. He is licking off the fur on his legs as well as a few other small spots on his body. He was tested for ringworm and the tests came back negative so I have another appointment with the vet on Tuesday. I’m also going to switch litter as I’ve read that some cats develop an allergy to some kinds of litter. What a nightmare this has been.

Not ready for work tomorrow. Weekends really are too short.

I haven’t done much while home but decided I need to get started on a few things today. I can’t go back to work on Friday having accomplished nothing for three days! Patrick is moving into a new apartment on Saturday and will be coming over to pick up his old bed (temporary till he gets a new one) and a chest of drawers that is his but wouldn’t fit into his previous apartment. I’m going to get started in there ‘freshening’ the bed with Fabreeze and clearing out a few miscellaneous items that were being stored in the chest of drawers. Also need to go through the linen closet to find a couple sets of sheets for his bed.

And, I have to give Nate a bath. You heard right, a bath. He’s got some spots in his fur where the fur is disappearing and the vet thinks it may be ringworm. So I have some special shampoo and have to bathe him in it every four days. I’ve been putting this off since I’m not looking forward to having my arms shredded as I lower him into the water, but I have to make an attempt soon.

Off to get busy…

Unfortunately it took us four days to do all this which meant that I didn’t have time to stay to help out with the grout, caulk and painting. I felt bad to leave him with still lots to be done, but was happy to have been able to help out while there. And I did get to spend a lot of time with Robin before we started working and when we took breaks in the evening. He is lots of fun to be around and we had a great time being together.

Robin started preschool while I was there. He’s going to a new school where they deal with special needs kids. He’s only been in school for a week now, so it’s really hard to judge how he’s doing just yet. After another month or so I think we’ll have more of an idea as to how it’s going.

Haven’t done much since I got home. Fortunately I had done lots of cleaning before leaving so the house is in relatively good shape. Will get started with catching up on yard work as well as continuing to clean out the garage next weekend. It was nice to have a weekend off.

Most of the house is cleaned and all the errands have been run. Still need to spend about 1 to 1-1/2 hours outside watering everything and setting up the drip hose so that the pool stays full while I’m away. But since I don’t need to leave for the airport until 4:30 pm, I should have plenty of time to get everything done with time to spare.

And now, off to bed!

I head up to Seattle next Tuesday to spend a week with Kevin, Soula and Robin. I don’t expect that to be all that relaxing, especially with Robin! But it will be fun and I’m looking forward to the visit. Also, it’s going to be a LOT cooler in Seattle than here!

For the next three days I’ll be cleaning up the house, doing laundry and other indoor tasks. I might have done some outdoor stuff, but it’s blazing hot outside! Today it got up to 108 degrees!!! I may do a few things outside early in the morning, but that won’t last for long, I’m sure. I have plenty to do inside, though, so I’m not worried about being bored! And I have a few errands to run before leaving next week.

Thankfully Veronica will be watching my cats while I’m away. I was worried when I realized that Patrick will be at Burning Man next week, but Veronica stepped up and offered to help. She is absolutely the best!!! I don’t blame her for not wanting to go to Burning Man–and I’m grateful she isn’t going!

Glad I’m not on the East coast where Hurricane Irene is hitting hard from North Carolina all the way to Maine this weekend. Not sure yet if it’s going to be as bad as the predictions. We’ll see…

So I’m heading off to bed for the start of my final vacation period this year. I’ll miss having no more time off until Thanksgiving. Seems summer goes by faster and faster each year.

All but Hayes, that is. I’ve tried everything with Hayes and he just won’t touch the wet food. He used to eat some kinds when he was a kitten but, even then, he turned up his nose many times. So I doubt I’ll have much luck switching him over. Oh well…

Meanwhile, I caught Sophie peeing in a basket of clean towels yesterday. Great. It cost $140 to find out that Nate doesn’t have a UTI. And the crystals in his urine is something that’s more prevalent in male cats, so I’m going to guess that it’s a possibility that Sophie might be the one with a UTI and treat her with the antibiotics that were prescribed for Nate. I don’t need them for Nate and I’d rather give them to her and hope that solves the problem. The medicine won’t hurt her, so it’s worth a try. And it could save me $140. Here’s hoping.

And then there’s little Mitsy who is still absolutely adorable as well as absolutely wild and very much a kitten. She tears through the house playing with all the other cats and having a great time. And then she jumps up on me and cuddles and purrs forever! She is just so cute! Right now she is curled up behind me in a cat bed with her favorite toy right beside her. She’s the only cat I’ve ever had that has had a favorite toy. Again, she is just so cute! Her only fault is that she loves to purr and lick. She licks whatever skin she can get to the easiest–arms and necks being her preference. It wouldn’t be bad except that she likes to knead with her front paws and her claws are sharp! A small price to pay for all her cuteness!

To put this all in perspective, I still have a ton of trash to get rid of! Even though we’ve emptied all these containers, the majority of it is either at the side of the house or still in the garage in a big pile! I will either need to put as much of it into the trash can as possible each week or schedule another unlimited trash pickup. I’ll probably do both, but it’s nice to have a good chunk of the garage sorted and ready to go.

I’ve got another 1/2 dozen boxes that we brought in the house yesterday that I’ll be going through tonight and tomorrow. Most of that is paper, so I can easily get rid of most of that in the recycling bin. And then I’ll start in on my office and the closet in the office. It’s amazing how many paper items I thought were important to keep all these years!