Did you accomplish anything today?

[jbeany]

So far, I've caught up on sleep - and made a list of all the things I should have got up early and done....

[jbeany]

Wooohoo - finally did my taxes!  I'm even getting a nice chunk back from the state, which I wasn't expecting.  Usually I don't owe anything, but I also don't get anything back.

Also managed the other thing I've been stalling on - digging up the nasty landscaping plastic that the last owner used to cover the flower beds in front of the house.  He buried the plastic under 3 inches of river rock, and raking the rocks away simply shredded the plastic into chunks, so removing it involved a lot of time crawling on my hands and knees on a bed of over-sized gravel pushing armloads of rocks around.  Owww.  This house is over 60 years old - I'm sure there must be some bulbs planted out there somewhere.  Hopefully the warm, rainy weather that's coming in the next couple of weeks will show me if anything survived.

So that's the two worst things off my list. Tomorrow, I get to do all the entertaining things, like sample craft projects for my up-coming classes.

[cariad]

Said goodbye to Dyl's best friend today. They are moving to Texas so one less reason to ever come back here. I'm so glad we left when we did, all the important people in my kids' lives are moving on, too.

We are mostly packed, have to be up in a couple hours to catch a 6am flight. 

[cariad]

Went to Painted Cave to show Gwyn the Chumash cave paintings. I found a separate painting way up on a rock outside the cave, at least it looked like a Chumash design. Picked my older son up from the airport, fresh from his first trip to visit friends via airplane on his own. He had so much fun but he keeps bursting into sobs because he says he misses his friend so much. It's wearing on my patience.

We went shopping - Bettie Page clothes are made to fit Barbie dolls so as much as I loved the look, I only found one thing that I liked on me.

Scheduled Gwyn and Aidan for paragliding lessons on Wednesday. We are all overtired from too much travel. All of these flights and not one time do all four of us fly together. See for yourself, behold our flights, in chronological order:

C,A,E Heathrow to LAX
G Heathrow to LAX
G,A LAX to Milwaukee
C,E Santa Barbara to Milwaukee
A Midway to Denver
G, E, C Milwaukee to LAX
A Denver to Santa Barbara
G,A,E LAX to Heathrow
C LAX to Phoenix
C Phoenix to LAX
C LAX to Heathrow

I was in charge of logistics. It's a wonder I have a single hair left on my head.

[cassandra]

Wow, that sounds so heavy!

Love Cas

[cariad]

Today was almost exactly the same as yesterday. I drove Dyl out to Ojai for his second day of horse camp (he loved it so much yesterday that he asked to have another day there) and my mother dropped Aidan and Gwyn off at the paragliding training hill. Aidan apparently had the most amazing flight today, just soaring around for ages. He is rumored to be their youngest pilot ever.

I've surprised myself by suggesting that the boys undertake these challenges. I videoed Aidan gliding yesterday and stayed perfectly calm. Aidan declared that paragliding is "the coolest thing I've ever done".

Boys are in the spa right now relaxing. We are hopefully going out to dinner for our last night with all four of us in town.

[Poppylicious]

Yesterday's load of washing is on the line, the bed is made, the library has been visited, a postcard posted, tonight's dinner bought, a Tesco delivery ordered for tomorrow, and a cold breeze is wafting through the house in an attempt to freshen the place up ...

This afternoon I'll be sorting out my photographs from my nearly-Sister-in-Laws Hen Do (Bachelorette Party for those the wrong side of the pond) to PARIS! I've been to Paris before - back in 2004 with Mumsy - but this trip was just for a night and included dinner on a ship on the Seine and a show at the Moulin Rouge.  There were A LOT of boobies on show (the dancers, not the gaggle of Hens I was with - we had to be a little bit classy because of her status in society!) and it was AMAZING!  I almost didn't go because I'm so shy/introverted and find meeting new people to be really uncomfortable, but I think I got on with everyone (that was my accomplishment for the weekend; stepping out of my comfort zone).  Yay me!

[galvo]

Boobie photos, yes?

[Poppylicious]

Boobie photos, yes?

Haha ... no.  The Moulin Rouge has a very strict policy on photography once you're inside.  I suspect that anybody found taking pictures during the actual show would be roughly escorted from the premises, but I wasn't willing to put that to the test.

 

[Riki]

I went for a walk today.  Walked 1.34km in half an hour, according to the sports tracker on my phone

[Poppylicious]

 

I went for a walk today.  Walked 1.34km in half an hour, according to the sports tracker on my phone

I slept till midday.  I'm either very tired or attempting to shake off this cold-bug which has been threatening me (but never quite peaking) for over a week.  Grrr.  I also danced for half an hour, with the curtains closed.

 

[cariad]

Last night I finally got the last tax papers to Gwyn to get to the accountant. Don't know why it took me so long, I have one of those psychological blocks when it comes to tax. We usually get a refund, too, but I am always convinced that this will be the year that we are slammed with an unmanageable tax bill.

I also broached an uncomfortable subject with my mother last night. It went better than expected, which is not to say it went well. 

Just purchased approximately $400 worth of kids shoes on Amazon so that I can see what will fit in my bags. Geox, Primigi, and Keen are all difficult if not impossible to find in the UK, so I went a bit wild. Everything I decide against is returnable. I also bought a few artsy zipper pulls off Etsy. My lovely, soft, soft, soft, furry jacket that a friend gave me had a pull come off in the dryer, and it was a nice pull, so I decide to treat myself to a bit of sparkle and give a touch of support to two artists. I have a cosmetics appointment with a woman from LA to get my mother's special foundation. My skin is so touchy and prone to horrible dry patches so I am going to spend a crazy amount of money to try to keep that under control. I've tried this concoction before and it works really well for me, but you have to meet with the person who makes it, and it isn't the most recession-friendly.

In other words, I've been single-handedly propping up the American economy. Could someone else take over for a while? I need to give the bank account a breather....

[Riki]

I went for a walk today.  Walked 1.34km in half an hour, according to the sports tracker on my phone

I slept till midday.  I'm either very tired or attempting to shake off this cold-bug which has been threatening me (but never quite peaking) for over a week.  Grrr.  I also danced for half an hour, with the curtains closed.

 

I haven't done any dancing lately.. might do that tomorrow, if it's still cold out like it was today.. there was snow poofies in the air when I was going into dialysis

[Riki]

I did another 1.32km today in 34 minutes.  My new shoes are really hurting my feet, though.  I think the neighbors might be getting used to seeing me out walking around now.

[cariad]

I am doing a bit of restaurant recon in preparation for my good friend M coming up from LA. I am thinking divey Mexican as SB does that better than anywhere else (except possibly Mexico). I just finished rajas con queso tacos at one option.

All I've managed to do today is get to Old Navy and buy the boys their costumes for a dance performance they have coming up in May. I don't care for Old Navy. The clothes are cheap because they are so quickly and poorly made. But they had the type of thing that the instructor was looking for, and I'm not convinced the boys will ever wear these clothes again once the performance is over.

[MaryD]

I'm bedding down the garden for winter.  Lost count of the bags of manure I've spread. And the bucket-loads of compost.  But I know I have used two bags of sugar cane mulch to top it all off.  Also planted an avocado tree and a pomegranate tree.

[jbeany]

I'm bedding down the garden for winter.  Lost count of the bags of manure I've spread. And the bucket-loads of compost.  But I know I have used two bags of sugar cane mulch to top it all off.  Also planted an avocado tree and a pomegranate tree.

Ah, gotta love the contrasts here.  I went to the garden supply shop today to roam around and get ideas of what I want to plant when it warms up in a couple of weeks!  Peonies, I think, for one.  And I want that cocoa bean husk mulch that makes everything smell like chocolate...

[Riki]

Maybe you girls can help me.  Mom and I are looking for something to plant on Reese's grave in the back yard.  We're looking for something that will stand out, it flowers nicely or has colored leaves, doesn't require a whole lot of maintenance, and is big enough that the guy who cuts the grass won't mow it down.

Any suggestions?

[jbeany]

Where are you at for climate?  And ask Monrein - she's the master gardener here!

[cariad]

I am back home and almost back on schedule. Actually got out the door in plenty of time today, and with walking to school we know it will always take about 20 minutes. Dropped off my dry cleaning, ran into the mother of a girl who was desperate to get into the touch rugby club and warned her there was only one slot left, then over to Smith's for a copy of the Beano. Met up with a friend there who said she also wanted a copy of the Beano, and as it was the last one left, I insisted she take it. I'll be getting Dyl an annual subscription for his birthday. Friend and I then went for tea this morning and had a long chat about where we both are with life issues.

Yesterday I managed to get 3 friends their gifts from America - 2 women I gave a 1 pound box of assorted See's chocolates (very Californian) and my American friend I gave 3 ounces of Rishi green mint tea and a bottle of very local Syrah. When I gave my Scottish friend her See's she said "Do y'know, an hour ago I tore my house up looking for chocolates?" I still have to get the peanut butter and chocolate assortment to my Aussie friend (by request I got her peanut butter M&Ms and a new Reees's product, and then bought her some Trader joe's peanut butter cups because those are far better than anything Reese's.). I also have 2 bottles of local beer for the father of a friend and a bottle of local white for another friend. Yes, I did pay an additional $48 to check an extra bag on my flight.

We are scheduled to see a few houses this afternoon. I think we're going to put an offer in on a house we saw yesterday but we don't imagine they will accept it. We already put an offer in on a fixer but were outbid by at least 4 different builders with cash. Scary. There is so little affordable in this town, so we're in for a long search I imagine. We've all four been officially living in this 2-bed flat for less than a week and it's doing my head in. However, Dyl has his place at one of the top primary schools in Britain! The plan worked. 

[WishIKnew]

Today has been a major clean-up day around here.  Closets, file cabinet, desk drawers, scout files.  I still need to spend a lot of time getting all of my medical paperwork organized, BUT it was a very productive day.  Also took my son to get his temporary driving permit.  EEEKKK!   Good day here.

[cariad]

More shopping! Subscription to The Beano for Dyl to start his birthday week, a storage bed frame to be delivered Wednesday so that we will actually be sleeping on a real bed and not a mattress on the floor, plus have more drawers for our clothes, and a table and chairs off of Preloved. We needed as small a set as possible for this flat. I think we got a high quality set (solid wood) so we should be able to resell for about what we paid for it, possibly even a bit more.

Aidan had a football game and Dyl had rugby practice, and I cleaned and organized for a few hours, though you really cannot tell.

[jbeany]

Made fresh strawberry syrup and pancakes this morning for my company, as they were packing up to head north after a weekend of shopping and entertainment in the "big city".  Got the house almost back in order.  I'm working on getting my basement dried out - with the record flood levels, I've got a damp rug in my rec room in the basement, but nothing major.  Time to do laundry and vac up the spring shed of cat hair next!

[thegrammalady]

I managed to wash the sheets! Not exciting but something that needed to be done.

[Riki]

I was sick all weekend, so I didn't get out for any walks. I went today, and walked 1.56kms in 45 minutes.  I went in a little different direction, and explored the trail, but had to walk home along a busy street.  That was rather uncomfortable.  I still did it, though