Enjoyed

It's been a lovely five day weekend. I don't have massive lists of accomplishments to report - and yet, I did get 'stuff' done and was not too sloth-like. A bit of sloth..but I did manage to be 'productive'.

Yesterday, after lunching in Livermore with a friend, I made a trip to Home Depot to procure more 'grass patch mix'. We still have a few spots that need fixing. I also did a mini-Costco shop, picking up the couple things we forgot on Sunday - and pizza and salads for dinner.

Today, I resisted the urge to go to Jackson - mainly just trying to be frugal - what I would (most likely) lose combined with the gas to get there - and added to that, my somewhat 'sloth like' feeling today that I just didn't want to spend an hour and a half each way in the car. So I went to OSH to look around and found grass patch mix for A THIRD of what I paid yesterday - it's not the same brand, but it's the same 'mix' of seeds - and it was only $5 per bag for three times the amount. I bought 3 bags. Then I had to return the purchase from yesterday, so back to Home Depot. Thankfully, HD is near a drive thru you-know-where, so I procured my daily ration of caffeine.

While the cleaning ladies were doing their thing, I ran my errands. When they finally made it into the study, I took Chloe outside with me and worked out there a bit. It was HOT but I cleaned up some 'stuff' in the little space between the walkway and the fence - some plant stuff, a bit of recycling that's made it's way out of the trash can. It looks tidier. I also cleared out the patio planters where our plants died - I got a little too wrapped up in year-end and didn't water everyday - during the hottest part of our summer so far - and I lost quite a few plants. Since I'd also procured some plants at HD yesterday, I cleared out the dead plants, and readied the pots for fresh potting soil (put the old soil in a section of the flower bed that I've named 'the soil depository'). It now needs to be 'raked' into the existing soil and I'll get to that this weekend, hopefully.

It's funny how 'good' I feel that the trash bin is overflowing (just stuff we've tossed that needed tossing - mostly from the garage) and the recycle bin is full. And the lawn trimming bin is also not too empty - all those things are signs of 'progress'. I've recycled papers from last year's school binders; tossed things that we don't need and can't donate (little things the kids bring home that sit around cluttering up the place for no apparent reason); trimmed, weeded some, etc. It's a good feeling to have overflowing waste receptacles. It's strange to me - but I might make that a 'goal' - try to fill the waste cans 'cuz that's a sign you've done stuff around the house that needs doing. And the added benefit of a continually expanding visible concrete floor in the garage is an added highlight.

Of course, there are zillions of things I didn't get to - and I need to. But hopefully, the three days of work this week won't shatter my motivation and I can continue working on stuff this weekend. That would be nice.

We had the 'chip repair' guys come and patch the chips in the van window. I don't commute over the Altamont anymore - and it seemed pointless to repair them when I was likely to get another one (or two or dozen) imminently - but since we're trying to sell it, we got them fixed - 100% covered by our insurance. J. also went to the DMV today to get 'new' plates for the van so we can save my 'personalized' plates for the Mariner. They say [heart symbol]MI2SNS - Love my two sons. I sort of considered letting that plate go - sometimes, I think people read it as 'Love my two sins'. And since the outer frame says 'Teedle and Boo' (the nicknames for the kids when they were babies), I think people are looking at me trying to figure out exactly what two 'sins' are metaphorically being called 'Teedle and Boo'. I'll leave it to YOUR imagination. Go ahead. You know you will.....anyhoo - so I considered letting them go and just getting 'regular' plates. But I do love my two sons, so I'm keeping them. Thanks to J. for helping with that. Now, we wait for the Mariner 'regular' plates to arrive and then take them back to the DMV, with the personalized plates we have in the garage (safely stored) and put the Mariner's ID # on the personalized plate. It's a complicated process - but thankfully, J. already blazed the trail a couple years ago when he bought his new car. So that 'to do' is off the list.

We are sitting on the edge of our seats watching the stock market's crazy ride this week. The government bailing out AIG is not a good thing. How many bail-outs can the government keep doing? And while I realize there must be very serious reasons for doing that, I still don't feel good/comfortable with it. It will affect consumers either way - if they fail, it will have repercussions. But the government spending BILLIONS of $$ to shore them up - wow. I just can't wrap my head around that.

J. got a call today from a person asking if they should put their money in gold. His advice? No advice. We don't give advice to people. And just the fact that they're calling and asking should be their first (OF MANY) clues that they have no idea what they're doing and would be better to just keep their money in a bank somewhere. WE are less than 10 years from retirement (for J. at least - it now officially looks like I'll be working for the rest of my life) - and we're still holding tight. You have to invest for the long term. You can't have knee-jerk reactions that lead you to make bad decisions. Truth is the stock market is a relatively 'safe' place - sure, it has volatile times (as evidenced by NOW) but by and large, it is a good place to keep investments. And I look at it this way: we both work. We have good jobs. We can conceivably work for another 20 years if we had to - not that we want to - J. certainly doesn't - but we could if we have to. So if we lose absolutely everything (which isn't likely), we could rebuild. And we will probably be fine - the economy will turn around. Not sure when. Not sure how. But it will....so we, like many Americans, wait it out. Trying not to bite our nails, spend extravagantly, panic. We just hold tight and wait. And pray we don't have 8 more years of the current party in the Office of the President.

I did not check emails much - primarily because my mailbox is so blooming full that I didn't want to frustrate myself with trying to clean it out. I'm sure emails are bouncing back to people - and I'm fine with that. I will move stuff to folders in the morning, first thing, which at least clears the in basket enough to allow new emails to come in. I did pop in the office last night to get my laptop - thinking I would work on emails today - but I didn't open it once. I did check my voice mails and returned a couple calls - but that's it. I have done NO work for five days. At least not any work worth calling 'work'. I have a pensive feeling that I'll be paying for that shortly - there's always so much to do - but I really needed the break and I'm grateful I took it.

OK - back at it shortly.