A Sunday ....

After church this morning Greg and I headed to Islands for lunch, Shane had said no, but then he and Lexie joined us there as well. We've been eating at home for the last few weeks with only a time or two eating out. It's just as nice to eat at home, have what we wanted done the way we like it for so less $$ and without also the coming and going of more hectic running after a long day.. a nice treat.

Sunday update on my Saturday Knob purchase: I had about 20 minutes this morning before church, and thought I'd start to replace all of the handles with the knobs. Only to realize that the screws that came in the knob plastic wrap aren't long enough (of course).  So after we had lunch with Shane and Lexie at Islands in the Long Beach Towne Center, we headed over to the Lowe's to pick up the new screws. Plus Greg had measured the windows in our room which we already have "room darkening" shades up on all of them.. but we didn't measure them quite right and so they were a tad to narrow for keeping them blocking the sun out around the bull nose corners of the windows.  So today we were correcting this. We had to special order the large window, but came home with the two side windows, and also the darkening shades for the boys rooms as much for the heat control as the darkening should they sleep past sunrise..

here are some pics of the "handles" before on our Tommy Bahama bedroom furniture and the knobs that are on there now.

Old Handles

New Knobs to replace the weak handles for the heavyness of the drawer

I like the knobs as the bench that is at the end of our bed that I recently purchased also has the rivets on the leather seat and these knobs have the rivet look on them as well.  The dark color at first Greg wasn't so sure of but with the dark bookcase, the dark streaks in the furniture I thought it was a good touch to them.

Greg is currently putting up our new room darkening shades on the west side of the house in our upstairs bedroom.  Bedtime is nearly upon me and time to wrap up the day. 

Have a good week..

The Saturday..

Well, I did manage to catch up on a few hours of sleep getting up at 10:30. A quick breakfast and then a trip to Home Depot. I had a list in my head, & picked up a 20' extension pole, new wash pad & attached squeegee. Also needed 21 new knobs for our bedroom furniture as the current knobs have a pull semi circle and a couple come out repetitively. I think Greg thught I'd get one knob and check it out first.. Ha, I was sure and wanted too be done with it. I then also got a new mop, because the mop that I now have the replacement parts of the scrub pad aren't available anymore at the store or stores like it, of course. So this time I also bought a couple replacement scrubbers now... Beat them at there own game..

I then came home and got started with the window screens removed, and washed.. Started on the shady side of the house.. Amounts to 12 of the 24 windows in total. By the time I got done with them. I was more than glad to let those remaining on the sunny side wait til the next open moment in the week (???) the tendinitis in the left elbow was burning and throbbing enough that I even gave up.

So the plan for the gardening didn't happen but I watered them and they will live another day to be planted.. I've been sitting on the couch since then monitoring the laundry progression.

Once I get too the shower, will see if Lois Borton is home and willing to have a visitor.yy So today was a good day with some things accomplished.. The closet purge can wait too!

Wacky week finally ends..

The amount of time from last Friday to this Friday seems to have been double and just so complicatedly packed with so much emotion, sickness,work, emotion... It's been exhausting..

Lisa's granddaughter Jayden was declared brain dead on Sunday, several days of testing her organs and then the transplant was done on Wednesday evening. It's been just difficult to focus as I tried to work on Monday and Tuesday after the days that I visited Jayden in the hospital and i just saw her body morph and change. Thank you for praying for their family, they appreciated it so very much. Lisa and Koryne saw a grief counselor today which is a good thing and have been staying at the home of Lisa's parents rather than go home.

A midweek migraine that made my stomach up chuck was not a fun morning and the first sick day of 2012. A long morning in bed with the shades drawn helped a little. A casual day, a couple of easy errands.. But a movie and a curl up day on the couch. Next day, back at the office. Full steam ahead, saddled with a new program that gives you a stomach ache, and makes the part time status I was working back into, seem impossible.. Ugh.. But now the daily headache will have a reason as well.

The weekend has rolled around at last, and it is a clean slate of nothing on the calendar.. Plan is to revel in this, do a little more gardening, maybe go thrugh that master closet and do a serious purge of perhaps a hundred things either on a hangar or a shelf or a belt rack... That ahould be easy... Hard to imagine a lack of clutter...

Thursday night was a great gathering at Alpha but a late late night and after 4.5 hours of sleep, 3am wakeup call has expired my energy.. Good night.

A burst of energy...

Today I had a burst of energy unlike what seems like, well, forever. Now don't go thinking that I accomplished anything big like clean a closet, heavens that would take more energy than what I'm talking about.. I worked a full eight, had an appt, and then what I did do was....... I washed my own car, okay a Ford Explorer that the roof is just impossible unless I haul out a ladder.. Didn't do that.. And I watered all the flowers in my yard (have you seen the size of my yard?)and then I pruned a good vining plant by clipping off the south end of my Mandevilla it which was intertwined around branches of an oldER Mandevilla that had been pulled out last spring after its death was prounounced. The stakes were leaning, it was a mess.. But I have boughten another Mandevilla and will plant it a little farther away and stake it more straight up than intertwined at first.. But the remaining one is bright red blooms, the new one is such a beautiful color red and white striped blooms.. Yummy.. I also bought 4 little geraniums to start out in my garden border area that are all hot pink... Geraniums much hardier than having last years mass of flowers bordering the garden.... Which it won't be long and it will be time to plant.. We already have two volunteer tomato plants that have come up.. The weeds in the garden need to be attacked, I'll get the boys on that.... Not my kind of work, kills my back..

Which speaking of the back, I need to get out that zumba DVD and get moving... Hit the treadmill routine again to strengthen that back with some walking, yoga and running.. I feel the need for a Yosemite hike this spring..

Well goodnight, feel the sleepiness from 3am breakfast wakeup and watching an HBO show about Magic and Bird documentary.. Then remembered I have a DVR for this and headed to the shower at 4am.. So that is why the burst of energy this afternoon was wild considering I have been more prone to a nap everyday vs activity beyond work.. And I'm still awake at 9:15pm... Past bedtime, goodnight.

tragedy...

I have a friend Lisa Turner who I have worked with at UPS for as long as she has been there, about 25 yrs. I've known her to be very devoted as a single mom, raising her two daughters Kat & Koryne, supporting them in their interest of being in the HS marching band and all that goes along with it for traveling, fundraising.  Her daughters are the same ages as my boys.  Lisa's ex husband had run out on the family when the girls were very young, and there in lies the problem where having a team work of values ran into push back for Lisa with the girls dad on nearly every issue.  He didn't pay child support but "treated" the girls with gifts which won their favor and made Lisa the bad guy always.  Lisa deserved better for sure, but she perservered and held her ground. 

About 17 mo ago her youngest daughter a college student in nursing at UCLA, gave birth to a little girl Jayden. Koryne had been seeing a boy whom she naturally was "in love" with, got pregnant and lover boy hit the road quickly wanting nothing to do with being a dad or even now the boyfriend.  Now Koryne may be a sweet girl, intelligent in the ability to go to school to become a neonatal ICU nurse, but her common sense on men is tweaked.  Koryne insisted she could have the child, raise her & finish her schooling.  While Lisa had Koryne move back into her home from the dorms so as to help out, they setup the nursery, and life took off as it does for most in this situation.  Lisa did most of the mothering, commitment and nuturing of the precious little girl. Jayden was the apple of Lisa's life, and while she worked part time, it made for a strain I'm sure with no financial support from the newest deadbeat dad in a little girls life. Koryne meanwhile studied hard, attending school with a frantic schedule and a commute from La Mirada to UCLA making overnight stays much easier on campus at her friends. And she dated more of the same type of men.

On Friday Jan 20th, she had school, she decided to save the daycare money by just having her boyfriend Rick watch the child. Now Jayden's reaction to Rick was in hindsight terror and crying when he was going to watch her, instances of "oops she had fallen off the bed". Lisa's complete distaste for him meant nothing to Koryne.  On this particular day her sister Kat offered to watch her, but Koryne said no that Rick could do it, basically because he had nothing to do... no job, no school, no goals for getting a job, so he's free babysitting and she "loves" him.

My side of what I heard of the details of the story last night as I sat with Lisa at the hospital;  there was a roomful of supporters of family, friends of Lisa or Koryne's UCLA classmates, band mates from HS, and the boyfriend Rick and his mother.  Approximately 10am Rick called 911 as a half hour of Jaydens crying had stopped and she was not breathing. Rick says Jayden fell off the chair, a recliner. The call went out to police first and then to the Fire Dept. who when they received it, Lisa's brother was on duty and he knew the address as his sisters home.  Her brother came on scene with no heartbeat or breathing from Jaydens body, and he performed CPR for the entire ambulance ride to the nearest trauma unit in Irvine at UCI. When they got to the hospital approx 45 minutes had elapsed since Ricks call, which is actually 1 hr 15 minutes after she fell. They got a heartbeat, but she is not breathing on her own, life support was begun, tests for brain activity all came up negative. She has extensive bleeding in the lower base of her brain and they gave no hope for any kind of a turn around. Lisa got the call while at work and just ran out as fast as she could and headed home, she had to follow the ambulance and her home was invaded by detectives who detained Rick for nearly the entire day questioning him. He was released and headed to the hospital just prior to my arriving at 8pm.

I received the call from Jeannie at around 6pm, another coworker who was now at the hospital and was just leaving.  I headed there about 8pm, and another coworker Maggie was there, we were both able to go in and see Jayden at about 10pm. She has the most beautiful curly long blond hair after having just received her first haircut. She looked peaceful as though just asleep as any toddler taking a nap. But you could notice the swelling of her head that was starting, and the neck brace, and all the tubes all over her tiny body were the only indication that she was doing anything other than just napping.. Her heart rate was 175 which is higher than normal but what is expected for a body fighting against the imminent death that is going on after the injury.. We talked to Jayden, as they assured us that she could hear us.. And then we left her room in tears... not a  Koryne had made the decision that they would donate her organs but the when the life support would be ended is not done within that first 24 hours while the investigation goes on. Detectives talked to Lisa for quite awhile as Rick has a history of "roughing" up Koryne and hopefully she made that clear.

Koryne I'm sure had her moments of breakdown when she arrived, but she was smiling, interacting and laughing somewhat with her college friends while I was there as thoughshe was in line to visit a rock star.. meanwhile her friends were subdued, looked stunned, quiet and teary& distraught... When I watch detective shows and they say "well they just didn't act like they were devastated" this is the picture that came to mind.. Koryne's time as a mom was quickly coming to an end, you couldn't have drug me out of little Jaydens room, I'd be taking in every moment that I had left.  My opinion, but this was just as bizarre as I could imagine, and it wasn't just mine.  Her mom said that Koryne was in denial, the instructor from her class said that it was time for her to switch out of nurse mode and into mommy mode.. so they were going to have the friends begin to leave so that Koryne was going to have to step into reality as difficult as it was going to be, she would regret it later if she didn't.

I haven't checked back with Lisa today, but this will be a difficult week as the saying final goodbyes to this lively little girl, and the things that will go with a memorial service etc... pray for them please.

update on projects

update on project #1 ~ plugs and cords in the wall...is that it is completed... yay!

and it looks so clean and professionally done. of course he wouldn't have paid a professional to get it done, but his grumbling about how it took his whole vacation to get this and project #2 completed doesn't outweigh what he saved... I don't get it, but whatever.

the finished product - Sweet!

The process

Gregs homemade bracket which is hanging off of the wall bracket before the final tweak

the unfinished stair tread

this is one coat of verithane

The shelf is drying after each coat (took days)

the previous condition of the setup ~ and the coffee table is now back to being a coffee table in front of the couches..

Project #2

Garage Door opener replaced (twice) - Greg and his Shane

yes, there are other house projects that are on an invisible list.... but, for now... no talk on them.. (I'm drafting up the PO # and the conditions for the scope of work.. (my job now creeps into home in order to get things on the table and completed)