Naples

For the record, I tried to post this blog update on the ipad and failed miserably.  First, I was unable to add the picture and then I couldn't find spell check, but the final straw was when I wasn't able to separate my thoughts with spaces.  So, in conclusion, the ipad is great for many things, blogger is not one of them.

The girls and I flew out of San Francisco on the red eye to Naples last Wednesday night and got here early on Thursday morning.  Abandoning all reason, care for beauty, aging and health, I continue to be a sun-worshipper.  There is just something about the sunshine that is like medicine for me.  Laying waterside, pool or ocean, with a book and a cool drink makes me feel incredibly joyful.  I love watching the girls playing without anywhere to go or anything that has to get done.  I love California, but since moving there our lives have been incredibly hectic.  Between the accelerated demands of private school education, all of the girls' extracurricular activities and their social lives, Jay and I have had very little time for ourselves or each other.  My days have been pretty saturated with the stuff of new surroundings.  Not only settling in, but errands, cleaning, caring for Sidney Holler's failing health and trying to help Groovy James assimilate into his new family.  On top of that, I have my crafts, which I've been trying to make a little time for each day while the girls are at school.  There's a project waiting for me at home, on hold, that I can't wait to return to.

Jay is sitting this vacation out.  His new job is simply too new for him to leave for a week, which I completely understand.  He's begun taking on some real responsibility there and is coming home feeling happy, satisfied and fulfilled by his job with Twitter.  I'm crazily proud of and excited for him.  He's definitely found his place in the world and the culture there suits him.  He's going to be working 12 hour days and will have every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off, plus he'll have every other Saturday off.  We are really looking forward to this.  Honestly, Jay has worked a lot of 12 hour days in his career, but done it 6 or 7 days a week, instead of 3 or 4.  I have a feeling that every week will feel like a vacation.  I am really looking forward to the summer, when we can take advantage of our days together.  We can choose to be lazy and enjoy our new backyard, or to adventure together as a family.  Speaking of family adventures, on the tail of one huge move there is already talk of another.  It looks as though we may have the opportunity to move internationally with the girls in 2013.  This, of course, is a tough call that I think we should revisit at the end of 2012.  At the moment, I'm exhausted by what feels like constant relocation.  I want my girls to feel normal and for things to be quiet for awhile.  Also, what about our pets?  I do not think that Sidney could survive a flight in cargo, so she'd need to be re-homed. In and of itself, that feels like an impossible obstacle to overcome.  On the other hand, we have always said that if offered the opportunity to live internationally with our children, we'd take it.  My time abroad was certainly more an education than college and I do wish the same for my children.  So, I am going to focus now on making our home in California, keep an open mind and just wait and see what happens next year.

So often, when I'm busy I fall into some unhealthy ruts.  For instance, I drink too much wine and not enough water.   I don't get enough exercise.  I eat the leftover toast off of my children's plates.  These small things really add up and work against me.  I have done a little soul searched over the last few days and have decided to make some changes when I go home.  Truthfully, I feel pretty terrible when I act in unhealthy ways, and when I fall into these types of bad habits things like my weight feel out of my control.  So, I am ready to take control.  

But for now, I'm going to go and slip into my swimsuit and head over to the resort pool (pictured above) with my mom and the girls.  The kids are working out with my mom's trainer today and I'm going to lounge in the sun with a book and let my skin soak in the vitamin d.

Diary of a Pet

Every now and again someone will post this on Facebook and I absolutely love it.  I think that it is one of the funniest observations that I've ever had the pleasure of reading.  I am probably more a cat person than I am a dog lover and I just think that this perfectly describes the life of our cat Sherbert Holler.

Landscaping

Our California house is pretty spectacular! The house itself is super-cute, but the real power lies in our yard. We have a gigantic Orange tree, two lemon trees, a peach tree, a peppermint patch, a huge rosemary bush, a lavender bush, roses and tigerlillies galore and those are just what I recognize!

What amazes me is that our lemon tree and orange tree produce gigantic fruit. It's the kind of gigantic that I'd see in a market and pass on because I'd assume it had been shot with meathead fruit steroids.

Check it out!

Lemons!

Oranges!

I really need to learn how to take care of our landscaping. I want the yard to look beautiful, which is hard because I tend to kill pretty much everything I touch. I have been struggling to grow an avocado tree for YEARS and have only gotten it to work once (which Sherbert immediately ruined by eating).

That said, I'm off to do a little weeding!

The difference a year makes

Look at how short my hair was last year at this time!

And check it out now!

I should really start wearing lipstick again.

Bastards and Jerks

You know, every time I snip a negative person out of my life I feel a pound lighter. In those terms, I am anorexic now.

Sincerely, I feel like I live my life pretty honestly and make compromises and exceptions and allowances for other people when need be. I try to be understanding and loving and sincerely try to withhold my judgement of others. But as I get older I am less of a pushover. I am more interested in caring for my family and living my life than I am to pandering to the needs of financial or emotional leaches. I am really tired of being taken advantage of. I have spent too much of my life allowing people to take advantage of me because it was easier than fighting for what I believed to be right and true.

I have to say, today I feel two pounds lighter. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

And I'd like to formally apologize to my husband for being such a magnet for crazy. I really know how to pick em'.

My crock pot

On days like today when we don't leave track practice until 7:30 and return home from picking Jay up until almost 8, my crock pot swoops in to rescue dinner like a superhero. I am not necessarily the biggest fan of slow cooked foods, but without it we'd eat a lot of fast food or have to wait until 10 for dinner to be served. I've found that it's so easy to make a hearty stew, slow cooked meats, bbq or pot pie in the crock pot and if I time things correctly (and set the table before leaving the house) we can be eating dinner within two minutes of walking through the door at night. The best part is that the clean up usually happens around noon time, so outside of the pot and your dishes, there's very little to do.

New Creative Project

I have been holding onto this amazing old chair, lovingly referred to in our home as Pandora's Chair. No one actually can sit in the chair because our very old cat Pandora is always there and on the rare occasion that she get up to use her litter box or grab a mouth full of Iams, she is sure to leave behind enough fur to ruin anyone's pair of black pants. So, really, this chair has become a fancy cat bed that sits in our living room and gets uglier and more disgusting by the day. What a waste and a shame because the chair is actually quite beautiful, though not entirely my style!

Here's the vision! I am going to strip this chair down:

I'll strip and bleach the wood and have a fuchsia stain made up! I have seen a lot of pink stain and I've seen a lot of purple stain and if I mix them... I just know it will be happily magical! I'll re-stain and refinish the wood and then reupholster the chair using this material that I found at DIY Upholstery Supply!

Simple, right!

Since I'm not knowledgeable about upholstery in the least, understandably I do not have the tools necessary to do the job. Instead, I found a hammer and these pliers and screw driver to be priceless in the painstaking task of staple removal.

I didn't actually rip any of the fabric. Instead, I took out every staple and kept the fabric in as good a shape as possible so that I can use it as a pattern and reuse some of the hardware.

During the process of removing the upholstery, I couldn't even keep Pandora off of the chair!

I took a lot of pictures of every step of the process so that I can repiece the chair more easily . Anything that didn't seem obvious to me was snapped. Like this:

and this

And in the end, the chair looks like this:

Tomorrow I strip the wood and then I'll spend the next few days conditioning it! Then I'll stain and finally reupholster! This is such a fun project, but I am wondering how I'll keep Pandora off of the chair when I am done?