To do list before trip
-buy BBQ sauce for Nate and Louise from Wood Ranch
-laundry (and change sheets if guests are staying at our house)
-clean out fridge perishables
-get camera from Ray? film?
-buy sleeping pills for flight???
-Coinstar our "rainy day" change
-buy & mail b-day card for Greg
-cash? traveler's checks?
-get out passports and other traveling docs
-pack
-stop worrying

4 days 'til we leave for Germany! I think I'll feel frazzled until I actually get things packed (maybe I'll create a list today to help make myself feel better about not forgetting something). We've got some things to do before we go too, like stop by Wood Ranch to get a few bottles of BBQ sauce to bring to Nate and Louise (by special request). We're also going over to Scott and Kim's house tonight to hang out one last time before we go (we just can't get enough of baby Samuel!). Although it's a bit late now, I just realized that Scott's birthday is one of the days we'll be gone, so we should have gotten him a little something (maybe we'll get something in Europe). My brother's birthday is also a day we're gone, so I'm going to head online and get him an Amazon.com gift certif since I wouldn't know what to send him anyway (I always get him clothes, but I haven't seen him in a while and don't know what size he is now!). :)

This post has been a bit jumbled and unorganized (disorganized? unorganized? Are either of those words right?), but that's how I'm feeling now anyway!

Lucy has now been at college for one week (her classes started Monday though). But she isn't old enough for this! She's my little sister--keyword little. I talked to her on the phone for a few minutes on Friday and have e-mailed back and forth a couple of times. I think she's doing well. It's hard to tell with her; she's so laid back and easy going (apparently, I got enough female-ish emotions for both of us) that not much seems to phase her. I think I'll send her a little care package.

Don't know why the first picture is cut off, but here are some with the floors all done!

This week we've been watching a lot of the Olympics and enjoying having our house back to normal (with some beeeeautiful floors, of which I'll post pictures as soon as we get new batteries for the digital cam)! Jon did end up getting the dishwasher to work, so we didn't have to buy a new one.

Only 10 days until our Germany trip! I haven't really been thinking much about it lately since it has always seemed so far away, but now it's here! Jon says we may take a day trip into France at some point, and besides that I think we'll let Nate and Louise schedule our days. I'm really looking forward to the time off work... things are abnormally slow this month in the office (this is normally the "busy season"), and it's getting monotonous.

Ricci's baby shower went great today! Just 5 girls showed up in addition to Ricci and me, but it was perfect--we're all the same age and had fun talking and hearing from Ricci what it's like to be pregnant. There was just the right amount of food and, even better, no weird silences or awkwardness since we mostly all didn't know each other.

In preparation for the shower, we got all the house stuff back in place last night, including all the stuff on the bookshelf, dining room things, couches, pictures/sconces, etc. The only snag was the dishwasher: because the new floor in the kitchen is slightly higher than the floor was before, the dishwasher no longer fits. Jon made sure the washer feet were screwed in so the washer stood as low as possible, used his Dremmel tool to file down the screws and things that were highest, even sawed off some of the protruding wood underneath the counters--all to no avail. So we might have to get a new one (no big complaining here--the dishwasher is really old--but it worked just fine! We had actually been planning on getting a new stove/oven first, since it is electric and when we took it out we saw that there is actually also already a gas hookup there!).

We might go to Macaroni Grill tonight... I can't wait for an Insalata Rossa!

We went and saw Scott and Kim and baby Samuel last night. He is so cute and little! And he can already move his head around--just like Sierra could. Sierra came in with Glenn and Kathy after a while, and she sat on my lap and helped me hold "Baby Yam." She was cute--gentle mostly but kept wanting to point out where his eyes were (and thereby accidentally poking him in the eye). Kim had him with no medicine at all--she is awesome. I wonder if I will be able to do that (one day!)--I hope so. I don't know if I'm a wimp or not. Can't wait to see them again!

Oh, and the house is coming along. We have our fridge and stove back, and our couches, new rug, and coffee table. Tonight is the dishwasher, dining room things, and odds and ends like lamps. Phew! I had already gotten used to how things were, so this morning I actually walked out to the garage from the kitchen to get milk for my cereal, and then I remembered the fridge is in the kitchen.

UPDATE: the baby was born today at 11:58! Welcome, Samuel Glenn. 8 pounds, 14 ounces, 21 inches long, and baby and mom are doing well. Kim did in fact have a successful VBAC with no medicine (eek!). We're going to go visit tonight.

Peeves, of the pet variety
I was thinking today about the phrase "pet peeve" and how accurate the "pet" part of it really is. A pet is an animal one chooses to own, then nourish, love, and watch grow. We foster the continuation/growth of our peeves when we make them our pets. And when it comes down to it, they are choices. A pet peeve isn't "that there is evil in the world;" a pet peeve is "that some people always use apostrophes in the wrong places" or "that people drive so darn slow on the freeway." So yes, there are annoyances out there in the world, but it is my choice whether I take those peeves on as my pets. Do I foster the growth and continuation of my peeves, or do I allow a spirit of love and understanding to supercede?

Here are some of my pet peeves that I should throw away (or "take to a farm with lots of land where they can run free, play, eat, and sleep all day"):
-grammar/spelling in other people's writing (still may correct it when asked, but it is not something to be annoyed about)
-freeway driving: it's OK if someone is going slow in the left lane; I can pass on the right and avoid thinking anything mean about the other driver
-other people's chronic lack of punctuality (OK, this will be a hard one to throw away, but I know I can certainly improve my attitude toward these people and be understanding about whatever circumstance caused them to be late)

What about you? What pet peeves do you think you can "take to the farm"?

pet peeve
n. Informal
--Something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation.
--A particular or recurring source of irritation, as in My pet peeve is that neighbor's cat running through my herb garden. [Early 1900s]
--n : an opportunity for complaint that is seldom missed; "grammatical mistakes are his pet peeve"

Still no baby! I'm praying for Kim. 10 days late has to be frustrating, since they have been looking forward to a certain date (8/8) for 9 months, and then it passed and... nothing. C'mon, baby Samuel!

The tile is finished. It looks really great. We had to let the grout dry overnight, and tonight we will put the sealant on it, but that's it. I started cleaning everything that was left out in the kitchen, since it's now all dusty from the tile and grout particles.

Having this minor disruption to our lives for the past 1.5 weeks has opened my eyes to the fact that doing a remodel/addition would be this experience times 100. If this was an inconvenience, then the addition would be like a 6- or 8-month ongoing disaster. But... I still want to do it. Financially, it's still wise, even though that's what is hanging Jon up: one of his buddies/coworkers who works in the construction industry said it would definitely cost more than what we've been informally quoted. In my mind, though, even if it cost twice what we've been quoted, it would be a good deal. But I have been thinking and rethinking everything because of this minor tile deal. Is this something we want to do? Is it worth it? Comments/advice? (By the way, I uploaded some digital pics I took of the proposed floor plans. They're big so I won't put them on here, but e-mail me or ask in the comments section if you want to see them; I'll give you the URL. I'm also not sure about "disclosure" or whatever and if it's OK with the architects for me to share the plans, so I'll share sparingly I guess.)

The tile guys are at the house today finishing. I am relieved and excited! Time to have my stove and fridge back! I hope the dishwasher will hook back up correctly (Jon and Chris had a lot of trouble removing it, and when it did come out, water spouted everywhere because the valve didn't close when shut off).

The baby shower I'm throwing for a friend is this Saturday, so I'll spend the next couple of evenings cleaning up and getting the food items ready. But I'm also supposed to go over to our pastor's house tomorrow evening to show him how to use PowerPoint, and then there's music rehearsal on Thursday night. And tonight is partially full because of a flute lesson... so that leaves Friday night to get everything ready! If worse comes to worst, we can do the shower in the yard.

The tile guys came on Saturday at 6:00 a.m. and worked their hinees (sp?) off until 5:00 or so, but they still didn't finish. They're supposed to come back tomorrow. It looks good though!

We saw "The Village" on Saturday. Because I had heard so many poor reviews of it, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I liked the overall themes, including man's inherent sinfulness (even when outside "evils" are eliminated).

Still no baby born for Scott and Kim! She was due August 8. Since she's trying for a VBAC, they were going to let her go no more than a week late and then induce her this past Saturday. But she went to the doc on Friday and was told everything still looks good, so they'll let her go and see if she can start labor naturally before the 20th. I really hope she can.

Frustration at work
A coworker has really been getting on my nerves. This isn't annoying salesperson--thank goodness (she's gone)--but it's someone who sits basically right next to me in our little "pod." At first, it was personality stuff, and now that I'm annoyed at those things, little mannerisms and "lower level" things are bugging me too. It's all going downhill.

Personality things:
-She is such a complainer. I now know I can't recommend any restaurants to her anymore, because she comes back to work after going to the restaurant whining about how much she hated it.
-She is overweight (probably "obese"--since it's over 30 pounds) but still goes to the vending machine several times a day and eats candy. Now that she's "on a diet," she complains nonstop about what she can't eat anymore. She has told us her goal is to lose 30 pounds by the middle of December, and if she does, her big "reward" is to go out for a big meal at Chili's. Hello!--that is not a "reward"--that's really a punishment since you'll be working against what you've been working toward for months.
-She'll turn around and start right in on some conversation she must have been having in her head and expect me to know what she's talking about. It's like she's rereading an e-mail I sent her yesterday or the day before or something, so she'll turn around and say something like, "Yeah, with that you're going to have to find out what the answer would be from Customer Service."
-She doesn't listen and always interrupts.
-She is annoyingly protective of and anxious about her 21-year-old son. She calls him all the time. She talks about how she can't go to sleep at night until he gets home, because she's so worried. She hears sirens on the street near her house and assumes it's because her son has been killed in an accident.
-The only change she is willing to go along with is one she suggests. I created a style guide for our department and did a reworking of all of our AutoText to update grammar, punctuation, etc. I also fixed consistency in spacing (some sentences had 2 spaces after periods, some had 1, some even had 3--I went with the Chicago Manual of Style, since that's what our company supposedly uses, and corrected everything to 1 space), and she is still complaining about that 9 months later.

Mannerisms:
-She talks weird. She halfway smiles whenever she talks (not bad I guess), so when she says her Ps (like in "park" or "apple"), her upper teeth touch her bottom lip to make the sound (instead of both lips coming together to form the sound).
-Whenever she gets up from her chair, she does this annoying little "grunt" thing. I know she has back pain, but jeez!

OK, and now it's time for me to do what would help me: begin praying for her. Anyone else have ideas?

No tile guys yesterday or today. And apparently, not tomorrow either. Bummer! The worst is having no stove, dishwasher, or kitchen counters. At least the fridge is hooked up in the garage.

Tile guys, won't you please come and finish what you started?

Weekend in review
What a busy weekend! We stayed up SO late on Friday night ripping up floors and baseboards. I'm glad Chris and Sabrina came to help--for hours. And we didn't even finish--by 1:30 a.m., we realized it wasn't worth it to try to get up the remaining flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, so we left that and went to bed (good idea, since we had to get up at 5:00 a.m. for Jon's day).

Then Saturday was the racing day (see pictures in post below). We had to drive up separately (I had to wait at the house for the tile guys to show up so I could show them what we hadn't gotten done, where the tile was, etc.). I got to the speedway before anything really started, though, so I'm glad I didn't miss anything. First, they took the 7 men in Jon's class out in a 15-passenger van to ride the course and show them where to take the turns (Jon said they took the turns, in the van, at 100 mph!). Then, they got in the cars and drove 10 laps (or more?) behind a pace car to get a feel for the track. Next, they went into a classroom for a 45-minute to 1-hour session (not so exciting for me sitting outside in the hot!). After the class time, they had another driving session, this time with no pace car. They started out in a Nascar start formation and did a few pre-planned formation changes they must've talked about in the class. Then they had several "free-for-all" laps where they could drive at their own pace and pass each other if necessary (the instructor communicated with all drivers through the radio earpiece they all wore). Then it was time for another 1-hourish class session, and then one more 25-minute driving session. This is the session where I really saw Jon get comfortable in the car (at least that's what I could tell from how fast he was going). I know Jon had a really great time, and I loved watching him. His best lap (according to my wrist watch and out of the 6 or so laps I timed): 55 seconds (around the 2-mile oval course). :)

We got home around 2:15 on Saturday to see the progress on the tile: not as much as I had hoped, but it looks good and the guys did get up the floors in the kitchen and bathrooms. I rrreally hope they come tomorrow and can finish.




Saturday night we went to Scott and Kim's. Scott showed us the house addition/remodel plans he had drawn up. Oh my gosh, they are awesome. I mean just awesome. In addition to adding the second story, there would be a lot of reconfiguration on the first floor... which means a lot of disruption to our lives--for many months. We're still talking/praying about it, and Jon wants to see how much we'd get approved for (we'd do a HELOC--home equity line of credit), but after seeing those plans I am so gung-ho for this!

Pictures from Jon's racing day
First: Jon finding the certificate for the racing day in the shorts pocket: "Whaaaat?"

Learned a new (to me) word today, but I'm not very sure if I like it. I guess it's slang, but still....

Natch.

As in "natchurally"?

Jon and I went to Home Depot last night to pick out grout for the tile tomorrow. We got a good matching color. Since we aren’t going to be home tomorrow, the installer guy came over this morning at 7:00 to go over what needs to be done. We have our work cut out for us tonight though!!! We’re doing as much of the prep work as possible to reduce the time we’ll have to pay him for, so we’ve been ripping up the carpet and baseboards. But tonight we have to scrape up the floors (VCT) in the kitchen and both bathrooms; clear all the furniture; pry off all the baseboards, door casings, and wood on the floor that held the carpet; remove the stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher (going into the garage I guess for now); get up the rest of the carpet in the living room area; AND get to bed at a “reasonable” time since we have to get up very early tomorrow. We thought we might not have to scrape the kitchen and bathroom floors--we thought maybe they would lay tile over them--but the guy basically shot that idea down this morning. Oh, and it sounds like he won’t finish with everything tomorrow, but that’s OK. I think he would come Monday/Tuesday to finish, so we wouldn’t have to go too long with partial floors. At this point, I don’t care if it takes a week!!!--just give me my tile! :)

At some point, we hope to meet up with Scott and Kim for at least a little while tonight, because 1) Scott is done drawing up our house plans! and 2) Kim is due on Sunday so this’ll be one of their last restful Fridays for a little while.

Our house
I realize I'm going out of order, as I sort of already mentioned the "remodel/addition" below, but I don't think I ever wrote about it. I'm stealing the text below from an e-mail I just wrote to a dear friend (hi Nell!):

We’re thinking about adding on to our house. Currently, it’s a one-story, 2-bedroom, 2-bath place with a teeny kitchen. We’d be adding a second story with 2 bedrooms and a bath. That may include some restructuring of the downstairs to create a little bit larger kitchen and/or dining area, but I don’t know. Our friend Scott and his dad are architects, so Scott came over last week and took measurements of the house so he can draw up some plans. This would be a very smart move for us financially, as having a 4-bed, 3-bath house would mean we could stay/fit in the house a lot longer AND even if it cost us 5 times what we’re thinking our budget will be, it would still be smart because we’d still be paying way less per month than if we sold our house and moved to a 4-bed, 3-bath house in the same area. Home prices are astronomically high here, and though we felt we paid a lot when we bought ours, its value has gone up a lot since we bought it. So that’s our fun news, and I’m really excited about seeing the architectural plans. I do know, though, that doing a major remodel like this effectively takes over your life for 6 months, but now is the time to do it when we don’t have kids.

Jon's birthday
It went pretty well last night! Ray, Colleen, and Jennifer came over around 6:30 and we barbecued some of the albacore and yellowtail Jon caught deep sea fishing a couple of weeks ago, and I fixed corn, vegetables, and French bread. We had Colleen’s poppy seed cake and coffee afterward, and then Jon opened his presents. He got clothes from his family, a Home Depot gift card from my parents, and earlier in the day Scott gave him a new tape measure and utility knife (boys!!!!). Then he opened my gift... 3 Old Navy shirts and a pair of shorts (he really loved the shorts). After he finished, he said, "Thanks everyone!" because he thought that was it. I said, “Check the shorts,” since he hadn’t noticed the little car that was in the pocket. He found the car and said, “Oh wow, what is this, a little GTO?” It was cute--I think he was confused but trying to sound excited because maybe that was my gift to him--a little Hot Wheels car. I said, “Look in the other pocket.” He reached in and pulled out the certificate for the racing school, which I had paper clipped to a brochure about it. He opened it, looked at it for a second, and asked, “What is this?!?” I told him he will be spending this Saturday driving stock cars in a racing school at the California Speedway. “Whaaat?” he asked. “This Saturday? But what about the tile?” So that was the only downer--that he was concerned about the tile. I think it’ll work out though. Even if we need to postpone the installation one week to 8/14, that day would still work. I took a couple of pictures last night and will post them once Jon can fix the USB port thing on the computer so I can upload the pictures.

We had a good, busy weekend. On Friday, we went down to where Jon's family is staying and had pizza and cake for Jennifer’s 14th birthday (we got her a necklace and cute little pad of paper in the shape of a purse when we went to Solvang and also a little photo album). We left around 9:15 and met up with Neil and Casey to see “The Manchurian Candidate” with Denzel Washington. I found it entertaining but a little “out there” (the events seemed plausible through most of the movie, and then things started getting weird and too unlikely). I also thought the whole political agenda was very obvious and overdone. I am interested in seeing the original movie though (with Frank Sinatra). Then on Saturday, I went and got my hair done while Jon helped our friends Dustin and Lissa move into their new townhome. We got some work done in the yard/house after that (Jon started ripping up our carpet and baseboards in preparation for the new tile that is being installed this Saturday, and he spent a while getting up that ugly wood floor at our entryway), and then that night we went out to dinner at Wood Ranch with newly engaged Steve and Chelsea. We went to Steve’s place afterwards and played a very fun game called Hoopla (an offshoot of Cranium). Then on Sunday, we went to church and then straight to the Angels game with Rob and Kristen and their daughter Skyler. It was rrrrreally hot until our seats were finally covered in the shade after maybe an hour and a half. The Angels won and we went home and rested before leaving for Jon’s basketball game at 5:30. We arrived to find out that his game was really at 5:00, so Scott and Kim came over to our house, and we had dinner out on the patio (and Sierra watched the humming birds--it was so cute). Then Scott and Jon took measurements of the house so Scott can draw up plans for the remodel/addition! Yesss!!! And that was our weekend.

Countdowns
Jon's 27th birthday: 1 day
Baby shower I'm throwing for Ricci: 19 days
Trip to Germany: 32 days
Bridal shower I'm throwing for Katrina: 54 days
3-day cruise to Baja: 74 days
Katrina's wedding: 82 days