A Day Off...

I distinctly remember years ago when my father-in-law would make statements like, "Good, tomorrow is Saturday. My day off!" Or, maybe, "Monday is a holiday, I don’t have to work." I always thought it was strange that he would make those comments, and would think to myself, "But he’s retired...everyday is his day off!"

Well, now I know what my father-in-law meant as this is my first "holiday" since my "retirement." I used to look forward to nice, long, four-day holiday weekends like Labor Day. But this year...nothing. No excitement. None, whatsoever. That’s when I realized why my father-in-law made those comments. He did his usual fix-up work at home and at the triplex during the week, but when it came to the weekends and holidays, he took the day off!

So today, I took the day off too. No cleaning, no organizing, and no checking things off the "to do" list. Instead, I got a pedicure with a nice foot massage (my favorite part of the pedicure). Then I went home and played. I turned on the computer and webcam and virtually scrapped with Hayley and Leah. We worked on our ATC Swap for ACharmingPlace. The theme is dragonflies, and we only have to do six.

Here are my ATCs. I just need to sign the backs of them. I used distress inks, perfect pearls, stamps, transparencies, Luminarte Primary Elements and glitter. The dragonfly, alphabet and filigree charms are from ACharmingPlace.com.

It was a fun play day!

Now, this feels like retirement!

Finally, things are settling down, deadlines are out of the way, and Kathryn is back in school.

Today, I went to our local Farmer's Market. I have wanted to go since it opened many months ago, but have only driven by every Wednesday—a day I went to work. I bought fresh rasberries, blackberries, strawberries, white nectarines, apples, zucchini, fresh flowers and, my favorite, kettle corn! It was so much fun!

After farmer's market, I drove to Palo Alto to have lunch with my daughter, Raquel. She's always so much fun and makes me laugh. I brought her some of the fresh flowers and kettle corn from Farmer's Market. I arrived in Palo Alto earlier than expected, so Raquel pointed me in the direction of a cute little stationary store I could walk to while waiting.

On the way to the store, I passed a Korean BBQ where people were sitting outside and enjoying their lunch. The food sure looked good! So when Raquel met me at the stationary store, I told her about the BBQ place I had passed, so that is where we had lunch. It turns out, Raquel is a regular customer there! It was yummy!

After lunch, I visited our local scrapbook store and picked up a "few things."

What a great retirement day! I got to do two things I couldn't do on a "work" day!

Here's a picture of Raquel with her kettle corn and flowers. When I look at the picture, it makes me giggle, because I see that she is not wearing her natural, beautiful smile (unlike Kathryn who will NOT smile). She's saying as she smiles, "Why are you taking a picture of me in the lobby...with my kettle corn?"

Finally, she says, "It's for your blog?! Isn't it?!" Well, yes it is! As I was "informed" that after performing a "search" of my blog, there were NO pictures of my first born.
Now there is :)

Someday she'll smile...

Kathryn's first day of her Sophmore year. Of course, I wanted to take pictures but she still won't smile for me. And to top it off, this morning she had a tiny pimple on her forehead (seriously, you could barely see it, even up-close), so what does she do? Tries to cover it with her bangs! So, now, in addition to telling her to smile, I'm telling her to move the hair from her eyes.

I was looking at last year's "first day" pictures, and today, we pretty much had the same photo shoot conversation as last year:

"I don't wanna smile"
"UGH!"
"would you please stop already???!!!"

with bonus conversation:

"Aren't we done yet?"

"You're gonna make me late."

"I've only been standing here for five minutes..." (that's because you WON'T smile and take the hair from your eyes!)

"WHY are you taking pictures of me while I am talking???" (Because you won't smile! And maybe I'll catch one!)

"Ok - that's it, I'm done!" and she walks off....I call her back for "just one more" and I get the MEAN look lol

As I drop her off at school, I figured I would try to get one of her walking towards the school...but she saw my camera in my hand and as she got out, said, "OMG, you're gonna try to take another picture of me, aren't you? UGH" and runs off.

Oh well, not one good picture. I may have to try again when she gets home. Or, I may call in "the professionals" - my daughter Raquel. She always gets her to smile!

A Trip to the City...

We went to San Francisco yesterday to get Kathryn’s hair straightened. It turned out fabulous and she is very happy! It was 8-1/2 hour process. So, while Kathryn was getting "straightened out" (just her hair was straightened, she still acts like a teenager lol), Jose and I visited his brother who has a fabulous condo next to Ghirardelli Square with beautiful views and overlooks Alcatraz Island. (The above picture is from his living room patio -- see the railing?) He took us to lunch and gave us a tour of the city: Coit Tower, Lombard Street, The Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge - it was nice for both of us to be driven around by a local and not worry about parking!

Today, Jose and I are spending a few days in Lake Tahoe. I am really enjoying this thing called "retirement"!

Here are before and after pictures of Kathryn's hair. Amazing! Just amazing!

A very busy weekend!

It has been a very busy, nonstop, but very fun weekend! On Friday I drove all the way to My Daughter's Wish (that's about a 120 mile roundtrip, and you know how driving is not my favorite thing!) to take Tim Holtz's Assemblage of Flight class.

Here are my pieces. Later, I will pop off the back of the pocketwatch and add a little more dimension. My favorite tip from this class was when Tim told us how to make "super glue dots". As you can see from the picture of the pocketwatch, the wings look a bit out of place but that's because they are "flexible" because of the "super glue dots". (The wings are attached with glue dots but super glue was added on top of that!)








On Saturday, I drove back out there again for his Industrial Grunge class. I've wanted to take that class for a long time. It was so much fun! Although, in retrospect, it could have been more fun for my friend Laurie who saved me a seat next to her. I was so involved in the class and "in the zone" that I wasn't my normal social self! I will have to make that up to her! I will post pictures of the things I did in that class as soon as I find them!








And in between all the fun from the Friday and Saturday classes, I was cleaning, shopping, wrapping and prepping for the family BBQ on Sunday for my baby boy's 20th birthday!

I can't believe he's already 20...how did he go from one to 20 so quickly?!