Iko and Repeat

It's a beautiful day!  Sunny, clear....chilly but no rain!  The yard is a swampy mess and our pool is a wreck - never really noticed how many things we have surrounding the pool that lose their foliage in the cold - but wow, what a mess.  We are sweeping, raking, etc. as much as possible but I pity the people that come after us 'cuz as the trees mature, it's going to be a nightmare.  I'm sure the next owners will just rip everything out and put in boring palms. Now I know why people use palms so much....boring?  Yes.  But they don't shed and there's a lot to be said for that when you have a cement pond that you cannot keep clean.

And no, we are not moving anytime soon.  Maybe someday...but for now we will stay put.  Though we just got a letter from the City of Tracy to let us know they are planning two large apartment complexes just across the street from our neighborhood.  Requesting rezoning and several other changes to the city general plan to accommodate those planned buildings.  Not sure how I feel about that - I don't really see a huge need for more apartments - but maybe they figure with the Amazon distribution center opening they need to have more affordable housing available?  Maybe.

This is also a day where I torture my poor husband by listening to the same songs over and over and over.  My newest obsession is Iko - a two man duo from Exeter who have a song on the new Twilight Breaking Dawn 2 soundtrack AND just had another of their songs play on Grey's Anatomy.  I was shocked to realize the group is two men because the vocals could be a woman - just higher pitch than you expect from a guy - lovely, lovely voice and now that I know he is a guy, it is no less lovely.  Love them and bought every album they have off iTunes.  An 'early' gift to myself.

We gave B. his 'big' gift early - a very nice watch.  And now we await H. arriving home to see his 'big' gift - we found him a new Cal King mattress!  Can't wait to see if he is OK with it - it was on clearance at Costco but it seems great and I think it's going to work fine.  Hope so, anyway....if he doesn't like it, we can always return it -

I am going to head to the kitchen to whip up scones for a morning full of meetings tomorrow....

It's been a lovely weekend with no work - yesterday was spent running errands and ended with Chinese from Dave Wong's - a nice family favorite surprise!

J. is doing his homework which he put off until the day it's due.  Spent all morning listening to lectures and 'complains' about how long the lectures are for this class.  I resist the urge to say 'you don't have to do this class, right?'  and also resist 'why do you leave your essays until the bitter end?'.  He always does....

We still have massive amounts of Christmas to put up.....dear.