Me, Backwards

(Warning: Feeling sorry for self ahead):

Lately it seems all I do is chase things that seem just out of reach. I try, desperately, to keep up with Daisy’s out-of-box pee experiences, but since I’m not with her 24/7, it’s kind of a losing battle. If I’m in the room, I can hear her scratching on the carpet in the dining room, and then I’ll know exactly where she’s doing her business and I can follow immediately behind with a splash of Nature’s Miracle. But it still smells like stale urine, some days stronger than others. (more…)

It only took about 20 minutes to make it official (at least from my end). On Friday, a FedEx envelope showed up at my house with the closing papers for my house in Seattle. This morning, right on time at 8 a.m. a notary showed up at my apartment. To make my cat-hating visitor more comfortable, I put the cats in kitty jail through no fault of their own (sorry guys), and we got down to business. Sign here, date here, fill in your address here … and 20 minutes later, I’ve signed away my part of the paperwork. On Friday, the new homeowner will do the same and take possession of my home. (more…)

It’s been way too long since I blogged.  On my trip to and from New York last weekend, I did some reading, but I spent most of the flights watching the in-seat TVs, including a lot of decorating shows on HGTV.  I guess I was inspired because I came back and was suddenly quite depressed by my stark white bathroom.  The guest bath is actually kind of fun in a kitschy way - it has pepto-bismol pink tile… EVERYWHERE.  But the master bath couldn’t be more white.  Not off white, but white white.  White walls.  White tile.  White ceiling.

Since I didn’t want to paint a rental, it was off to Ikea for some cheap decorating.  I’m pretty happy with the results (though I think now I need some bath towels in bright colors, too). Click on any photo to see it larger.

The before shot #1...

The After Shot #1

The Before Shot #2

The After Shot #2

Before Shot #3

After Shot #3

I feel like there’s been a lot going on lately, but really, it’s just life moving on and moving forward.  The weekend ended up being pretty mellow - errands and time hanging out with Sean, lots of reading, taxes, all kinds of fun stuff.  Taxes turned out in my favor this year - I’d hoped that I had adjusted my withholding so I wouldn’t owe, nor would I get a refund.  Unfortunately, my long period of unemployment kind of messed that up, so I am getting a sizeable refund.  Not that I’m complaining one bit about getting an infusion of cash, but I don’t so much like giving the government an interest-free loan. (more…)

As mentioned, I really needed a head-clearing weekend.  Fortunately, we’d planned a quick trip down to southern California, to go to Skydive Elsinore and to hang out with Sean’s family.  The weekend started out in a frustrating manner, as our flight was so delayed that we missed the midnight closure of our car rental company (and hadn’t thought to call ahead to let them know we were on our way, but late).  So… we had to take the walk-up rates of the few agencies that had stayed open to wait for the delayed flight.  Let’s just say it wasn’t cheap.

So, not much sleep at the casino hotel on Friday night, and an early start for the 10-way speed meet on Saturday.  Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous and a busy day of jumping and bright sunshine kept me going all day.  We drove down to Escondido in the early evening to hang out with Sean’s family there, and stayed overnight there.  Sunday was equally beautiful, and it was really wonderful to spend the weekend there away from the tumult of my life in Oakland.

The end of last week had me shaking my head and thinking “Wow.  Would not have expected all that this week brought me.”  Of course, Tuesday was Daisy’s diagnosis of a chronic illness, Tuesday and Thursday were decidedly different workout sessions from last week (different in that my performance was better and my recovery shorter, yay!), and Friday brought news of some big changes at work that have my job being changed around quite a bit. (more…)