The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

(a quote by Jules Renard)

The sadder truth is that I am not going to make anyone nervous that way!

I am so far behind in everything!

Ok, not everything.

I think my bills are up-to-date, but not my bookkeeping.

My desk at work is pretty current - if you disregard my trouble file.

I haven't written to my missionaries or my granddaughter in weeks! Not entirely true, I have written letters and started letters - if only I had mailed them! or knew where they are now!

And the house - what a mess!

So, what's new in life?

I came home from work the other day - last Friday? - to find a note on the door of the room that is going to be mine - "The bed is finished!" The boys made an all-out effort to get it put together before I got home and surprised me! It took another couple of days before we got the mattresses on the bunk beds, but now I am sleeping in there. It is more comfortable than my old mattress. Still old, and not quite enough support. Replacing everyone's old mattresses is on my list.

I have so far only moved one dresser and most of the clothes out of the closet. There is a lot of stuff to sort out. It all will NOT fit in the new room. Some will eventually go into the "office" but that room will be Joseph's room for a while. I should sort quickly (ha!) in case there is anything worth sending to the Scout yard sale this month.

General Conference was, was always, a delight for body and spirit. How wonderful it is to be able to listen to living prophets! and they're nice people, too. We shared picnic lunch with at least a dozen missionaries both Saturday and Sunday. All the family brought something for the picnic, making it much easier for me. As it was I shopped Wednesday after work, and did prep work Thursday and Friday evenings. No fried chicken this time. What I think of as Super Salad - greens mix, with lots of options, including grilled chicken strips (I get if frozen from Costco) , and also chili and franks. Easier and well received.

I don't have time to post notes from conference. Sariah posted excellent notes, and of course the entire confernce is available online.

Andrew is actually making real progress on his Eagle project. After considering several ideas, he decided to collect books for underprivileged kids/schools in the Philippines. Which led to some concern about the cost of shipping! He contacted the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco to find out 1) could they really use books, and 2) would they help with the shipping? The Consulate directed him to Books for the Barrios in Concord who would be happy to receive the books and ship them on. He has gotten signatures from them for his Eagle Project Workbook. Still needs to get the Scoutmaster's signature. Scoutmaster refused to sign until the shipping issue was resolved. He has an appointment with the substitute District Advancement Chairman tomorrow evening. Andrew also interviewed his person for one of the Communications merit badge. I don't know if he did the write-up on it or not. He interviewed Tom about being a good father. So, he needs to do his write-up, and one more requirement - he's going to do a flyer for his Eagle project, meet with a counselor, and he will have his last needed merit badge. It's a race to the finish, but I think he will make it.

I have a cold. a not very nice one. So far, I am managing to crawl to work and, relying on the miracle of modern drugs, basically function, but my head is clogged.

Oh, yes, I adopted a couple of rescue birds. My friend, Carolyn, from the dog park sometimes walks her neighbor's largely neglected dogs and cares for them when she is away. Last time she was watching them during a 4 day absence, she heard a noise in a dark corner. A pair of cockatiels. She told her neighbor, "I didn't know you had birds! You forgot to tell me to take care of them." The neighbor responded that she hadn't forgotten, she has been leaving them, hoping they would die. Carolyn took them, of course, but she didn't really want them. Remembering how we loved Rosie, I told her that we would adopt them. One is yellow-ish white, much like Rosie, the other is standard grey. They both look thin and bedraggled, but come over to the side of the cage when someone visits them.

Socket To Me or My Home is a Slider Puzzle

Before I could move my clothes to the closet in my new room, we had to move the lower wire shelf/hanger thing. It was too high for me to use the top one and too low for me to use it. With Joseph's help, I got that done - more holes in the closet wall, but that can wait. Most of my hangups got moved.

I am going to switch from the double (or queen?) bed I was using to a bunk bed. I don't have room in my new room for the bigger bed and I can use the top bunk for storage. Besides, the mattress I have is so bad, old and lumpy, that when David and Teresa were here and I gave them use of my room, they opted to share a bunk rather than spend a second night on it. My old back is asking for a change.

So, we took apart the bunk bed, carried the pieces into the other room and began to reassemble. (Toil and sweat! It takes a lot of socket turning!) At some point we cracked the socket we were using! Still usable - as long as it didn't meet any real resistance. We might have been ok, except as we were tightening the last bolt ont he bottom bunk (already thinking the top might have to wait for another day), we realized that we couldn't get it in because it wasn't quite straight and all the other 7 bolts needed to be loosened. Which the cracked socket couldn't do.

Even though it was nearly 8 and we still hadn't had dinner (I was finally starting to cook while the guys did the handyman bit), I went to Home Depot to get a new socket. Also to replace a small wooden peg my dog had eaten.

Have you heard the commercials that begin, "Day such and such" The most recent one I heard was "Day 21" our hero makes the dangerous ascent up one of the towering stacks of dusty goods, spots a search party in the distance, clambers down, and rushes into their arms - only to find that they thought he was there to find and rescue them! Last night I began to understand those commercials. Where are the helpful people in the orange aprons????

I found the sockets on my own. Even found sockets sold individually. Not in my size, of course. Also, noted that I was carrying a Craftsman (Sears, right?) while HD had something like Husky's or something - but not Craftsman. The way they were packaged, I could not tell if they would fit our tool handle thing. Spent some time searching for an orange apron. Finally found one guy who didn't know about sockets, but directed me to a guy who did, who assured me that they would most likely work. I had to buy a set of 10 to get the right size. It could have been worse. I found the dowels, but they didn't have any the right size.

Guess what, the sockets do not fit on our tool. I will have to take them back after work tomorrow. Maybe I will head to Sears after that. Possibly check Yankee Hardware, first, where they really are helpful.

The boys moved all the stuff we had moved off the bunk onto my bed back off my bed. We finally had dinner around 9 or so. oh well, makes Fast Sunday a little easier?

Every room has too much stuff in it. Every room has stuff that needs to be moved to another room - when that room is ready. We need to empty out the big room completely so we can paint and all. Not nearly all the stuff goes in my room. We folded up the dinner room table, so the dining room can be (again) temporary storage for things we want to keep whose room is not available yet - and for stuff that we are going to donate the Scout Yard sale until we get enough together to send on to the Scout storage. It will be a while before things begin to look better!

I am thankful
* for strong, helpful boys
* a house with multiple rooms
* it's OUR house!!
* close by Esther (who helped carry things like nuts and bolts) and Jared, not to mention also Tom and Ruth
* a place to sleep in peace
* my dog, even though she did eat that peg

Home, Sweet, Home

My credit union - all hail USE Credit Union! - emailed me today to inform me that Glen (yay, good for him!) signed the papers releasing the house.
USE should do the funding tomorrow. Joy! Relief! Excitement! and a fair share of terror! I told the boys, the house is really ours and our responsibility. I told my boss that with this debt I am now her slave for life or something close to it.

We get to stay. No hassles of moving; a yard for Anna (and us); our orange trees; best of all, those great neighbors almost next door!


Thank you!
home
loan
job
light rail
great guys to come home to
all the 8*3*4
friends and family

What shall we name our house?

Spring has sprung here. In fact, already some of us are starting to complain about being too warm. Not everyone. The other day a gal at work was complaining about the cold morning. I was astounded. It was in the 50's when I Anna and I went to the dog park around 6:40 and I was thinking that it was more than warm enough!

Blessings upon blessings. Last night after I had been home awhile, I realized I didn't know where my Palm (PDA) was. I distinctly remembered putting it in my bag before leaving work. I also remembered my bag being jostled on the train. One of the boys looked in the car without success and we looked all over the house thinking I had put it down somewhere. nothing. In Family Prayer, Glen prayed for me to find it. In personal prayer, I did to, but also asked for faith and calm whether I did or not. Almost all the information is saved on the computer, but would I shell out for another PDA or go back to paper ? Either way, it would be awhile before things got back together. This morning on the way back from the dog park, I heard it reminding me about my Bloodsource appointment. Happy Day! It was on the floor of the car.

Even as I type, Glen and the boys are wrestling his bed pieces through the house. He is actually moving out today! The boys and I are excited about the possibilities. What a lot of work we have to do! years and years worth. As we can gather our minutes and our pennies.

Friday I signed papers for a loan for the house! With my credit union, USE. 30 year 6.375% - lower minimum payments than I have now and no pre-payment penalty. I think it is a good deal. The only thing left is for Glen to sign a release. He talked to his lawyer who said wait for some paper or other, he didn't remember
what., and that his lawyer had written to my lawyer, but not heard back. (I know the feeling! I will call his office Monday.) They want to make sure I am legally promising not to rip Glen off. (Of course, definitions may vary. ) They proposed that the IRA(s?) be his personal property. I think not.

Closer and closer to get things settled and completed!

Glen has completely redone his house and filled it with all new stuff. Which means he is leaving pretty much everything else in the house for us. Old stuff, but mostly working so far. I had thought that we would be dividing appliances and such. Relieved not to be! Ben thinks he is even leaving his old tools as he thought he saw new stuff in the garage. I don't know what he might want to come back for later, but at least for now we will have everything we have had all along.

A lot of stuff is going to have to go so we can really get our house right for us. I am not the only one with clutter collection problems, Although we, in theory, know that we only want to keep things that are useful, beautiful and/or sentimental, in practice we have problems. For some reason it is hard for us to sort and throw. But we have dreams about how we want the house, so we are going to dig in and do it - a little at a time.

I am moving into Glen's old room, which was Debi's before that. She painted it off white and put a pretty leafy boarder around the top. Glen put in venetian blinds which I am sure he is leaving.

As soon as we get my junk out of the master bedroom, we are going to rip out the old green carpet and paint the room with an under the sea theme. The initial inspiration was the old beat up bunkbeds -shipwreck! We are going to paint the walls watery blue. Maybe paint a sunken ship or two and some seaweed. Once it is painted we are going to do a kind of glaze to make it watery and wavy looking. We are hoping to find removable fish decals that the boys can arrange and re-arrange. They want to paint the double closet door with a shark that eats little fish when you open the door.

Then, the room that is now Joseph's. (All 3 boys will share the master bedroom) We have treat the peeling wallpapered walls. Then we want to paint the ceiling like a sky and the walls like a forest. Eventually, it will be our "office." Before that, it will be storage space while we work on room other things.

Number 3 -
Either the living room which I want to feel light and airy and a bit like a English country garden, or the family room which will be a day at the beach. I found a painting that I want in the living room (a print, of course). It was in the office where I was signing my loan papers. "Guardian of the Sea" by Nicky Boehme - in the style of Thomas Kincaid, but I actually like her work even better, I think.

My dream home!


Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that, we hope to get the walls of the bathroom that was remodeled last summer correctly plastered. The guy that did it did a blotchy job, neither smooth nor textured. We will paint it blue. The question is will we leave it plain blue or add cloud effects. The blotchy white plaster over green whatever board has a little bit of cloud effect which I like.

The kitchen - I don't know what or when! It will take thousands of dollars. IF (and that's a big IF) Glen pays me back for the car, we can do something. After the family room gets more or less cleared out, because everything, EVERYTHING will have to come out of the kitchen. I still don't know what color I want it to be. Dining room either. But the dining room will probably be the same color as the living room or close. The living room hasn't actually settled on a wall color yet. fun fun fun.

Thankfully -
* I suppose some might think it a sin to be thankful for a divorce, but I am and for the many, many blessings I have received in association with it
*my Palm
*computer back up
* 8*3*4
* prophets
* books
* printing presses
* the ability to read
* good friends!
* my house and home, humble though it be