Today is supposed to be another beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest. I missed yesterday’s beautiful weather because I had to go into the software giant’s office - yes, I’m whining, but thankful for the paying work. Today I’m going to slowly work on the yard area that we started on my birthday, and if I have energy (doubtful, but you never know) I may finish my sewing room. My son-in-law and daughter carried up my bookshelves and now all I have to do is anchor them to the wall and then load the books and fabric stash into them. Then I’ll be set! Yay! It only took nearly a year, but that’s okay.

As promised, here are some pictures of my birthday.

This is the sweet boy with his head on Feef (Felix) the cat watching TV while we waited in the morning for his mommy to get home from helping out at his sister’s kindergarden class. The cat was lying under Evan’s jumperoo and Cayden crawled up under there and snuggled on him. That’s the best cat in the world for kids. He’s old - about 11 - but the most tolerant cat I’ve ever seen.

While I was sitting on the couch, I noticed these birds up on the gutter and they were so pretty. I didn’t recognize them so I shot a couple pictures. I was hoping Joan’s wasband could tell me what they were. How I managed to get the one looking straight at me, I’ll never know.

My daughter, the chauffeur. She’s so cute. She really worked hard to make my birthday the very best, and it was. I think it was one of the best - if not THE best - birthday I’ve ever had. What better thing is there than to be surrounded by your family and enjoying life with them?

The boy eating his Subway sandwich and making silly faces at grandma. I adore him.

The other handsome boy. I missed getting the smiley faces - I was too close and they came out blurry.

Daisy eyeing Cayden’s dinner.

Lily checking things out.

There’s nothing sweeter than a boy and a puppy, especially this little boy.

Helping mama in grandma’s kitchen.

You get too close you get a tongue up the nose from Daisy. Ewww.

The yard before…well, sort of. I forgot to take a before picture so here it is with the tree planted, but you can see all those pavers I still have to move out of the way. My neighbor and I share this little area - half is hers and half is mine - and we’re going to put a semicircle of a planting bed across the back fence there, with the tree in the middle, and the planting bed full of no-maintenance ground cover and bulbs. Then the rest of the area is going to be paved so that we can sit there with our chairs and watch the kids play in the driveway/street area. We have a little section of the street off the main street where no cars drive and it’s a perfect place for bikes and trikes and water fountain playing.

Overgrown weeds that I have to get rid of because the nasty bitch property manager will send me a nastygram warning letter if I don’t.

The entire area and all the plants we got on my birthday - I need to plant them today!

And since no one guessed, but Joan knew, that’s a Profusion Crabapple tree that smells beautiful. Believe it or not, we got all these plants from WalMart. The dogwood was only $39 and the cherry was $20. How fabulous is that? The cherry tree is not going in this area, however. That would be silly.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Thank you to everyone from Joan’s blog who I’ve had the pleasure to meet yesterday and all my buddies who stopped by to wish me happy birthday. It was Mermaid’s birthday too (she’s one of my regular online buddies and fellow seamstress.)

I think I had one of the best birthdays ever. I will post more, probably tonight, but right now I have to summon up all the energy in my achy, tired bones to get myself off to the big software giant’s campus about 40 minutes from home. I have to go in to meet the client and do some work setting up my email account with them and getting files, interviewing subject matter experts, and so forth. All during this wonderful day of near-90 degree heat. And I have to be inside, dang-it. But at least, I should be able to head home by three and still have plenty of time to enjoy the weather. It’s supposed to be glorious all weekend.

Here’s a preview of the pink dogwood tree my daughter bought me yesterday, among other things. We got it planted, but that’s about all. (My body is screaming at me for it, and I’m screaming right back in stubborn Taurus determination to enjoy this life somehow, even if it means killer pain on a daily basis.)

And who cares to venture a guess what this is? The lucky winner will get a shout-out from yours truly. My daughter’s guess doesn’t count because she picked it out.

Toodles for now. Hope you all have a great day.

It’s my happy birthday today. (That’s how Cayden says it - he always adds happy in front of birthday.)

Today I am taking the day away from work and spending the day with my daughters. First, I’m going to go see the boys while Cindy goes to volunteer at Elise’s kindergarten class. Then, Cindy, the boys, and I will go to a nursery and she is buying me one of these:

It’s a pink flowering dogwood tree. They are beautiful when they are in bloom, don’t get too huge, and I love the idea that she is buying it for me and we will plant it together, with Cayden’s help, and it will grow for years and years and be a wonderful reminder of my daughter and happy times filled with love.

And to top everything off, today and through the weekend we are supposed to have record highs! YAY. Today is supposed to be sunny and near 80, and tomorrow near 90 in some areas. God gave me a birthday present too!

I will be taking lots of pictures, so stay tuned.

The Good:

Yesterday.

I lost two more pounds yesterday at Weight Watchers making my total in just over two months to 16.8 pounds. And I met my goal of 15 pounds by my birthday (the 15th). My next goal is 25 pounds by the end of June. I’m sure I can do that.

My grandsons came to visit me in the afternoon and my daughter and I got in our “Last Chance Workout” before Weight Watchers by walking to the park with the boys and Lily. Cayden rode his tricycle all the way down the hill, but of course, it was very difficult to get back up. He screamed (poor tired boy) all the way back home. It was hilarious watching him ride his bike. Think Arte Johnson’s tricycle from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in days (if you’re old enough to remember that. I couldn’t find a single picture of it on the Internet.)

Cayden was fascinated with his auntie’s facial piercings. Then they made silly faces at each other. Cayden is such a big boy these days. He loves Damma’s house and says it’s warm and “pitty” (pretty).

The Bad:

Nothing. Nothing’s bad in my world today.

The Just Plain Stupid:

Me thinking I could swing like a kid on the swings at the park. I got on there, and Cayden wanted to push me, so he did, then he walked behind me and I knocked him on his ass accidentally when my swing came backwards. So I got off, made sure he was okay - he was, he was laughing - and got back on. I continued to swing and see how high I could go. Cayden said, “Look Damma, you’re doing it!” Cracked me up. But stupid me, I hurt my back. Obviously that’s not an exercise I’ll be doing any time soon again.

Now, back to work…

Today I am thankful for the gift my Cindy, the little Mommy, has given me, specifically these little people.

And today, the youngest, Evan, decided that he was big enough to roll over all by himself. 

For your Sunday entertainment, here are a couple videos of him jumping in his Jumperoo.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The downstairs is almost completely painted now and ready for the baseboard installs and touch up of the trim. You don’t realize how dirty the front door gets until you put a fresh coat of paint next to it.

Yesterday I decided I felt good enough to finally tackle the front room. Two walls were this dark Bungalow Gold. It looked fine with cream colored carpet, but when you put the dark hardwoods in there, it just felt like walking into a cave. Those ceilings have to be 15 feet high. Or at least 11. Anyway, it was depressing and felt like I was always walking into a cave. I still have my goal of turning this into a lovely sitting and reading area. It’s ready now and all it needs is furniture.

We went from this:

To this:

A better shot of the color.

And now, the light fixture that I absolutely hated doesn’t look so bad after all. (It does need a wash though.)

Doing this room was a lot of work and I don’t plan on ever painting it myself again. I had to prime over the dark color before putting up the pretty blue. This meant cutting in the ceiling twice, and up and down the ladder nine million times. (That better count for some Weight Watchers Activity Points!) I am stiff as a board today, but that’s okay. It’s all worth it because I’ll be able to sit in that room and relax, enjoying my labors. Once I get a sofa in there, that is.

That color, by the way, is Summer Sorbet (SR1011). One of the Seaside Retreat colors from Lowes. In some light it has a slight green tint to it, in other lights it’s very Tiffany blue-ish, and in the sunlight, it’s almost white. When it’s wet, it looked like mint green, but look how it turned out blue. Just what I was hoping for. It is really a few shades lighter than the color I put in my kitchen, so everything flows in this house. Finally.

The stairwell is primed and ready to be painted too. I will probably carry the same blue up the stairwell since it is bright and light. The finish is also semi-gloss so that lets the light bounce and reflect off of it, making the area appear even larger. In the stairway, I already tried the beige (Pony Tail - used in the family room) and a pumpkin color that we used in the bathroom, and those are just too dark. I’m afraid of too much blue, but I plan on breaking it up with picture frames or artwork up the stairwell wall and sheers over the huge picture window. I think since the color turns almost white in the sunlight, it will be fine in the stairwell. I don’t want to have to do this again!

My daughter has a dark purple couch I’m going to put in the front room, and then I’m scouring flea markets, Craigslist, and garage sales for end tables, a coffee table, and an old dresser - oh and a small writing desk. I literally have NO furniture for this room. I plan to paint the furniture either white or black, and the dresser - when I find the right one - will be an entry buffet. I would like to find one where I can take out a couple of the drawers and use wicker baskets instead. I think it will look fabulous.

After the stairwell is done, all that will be left is one wall in my sewing room and the upstairs hallway. (I’m ignoring the bathrooms and laundry room for now.) Then all the baseboards will be installed, the furniture moved back in (sparingly), and life will be semi-normal again. Then I can focus on fun stuff, like sewing window treatments. Woohooo!

Later this spring and early summer, my next big home improvement project is the backyard. Let’s just say it involves a LOT of concrete and outdoor porcelain tile.

As are makeup artists.

Say what? You thought it was diamonds? Oh nooooo. Diamonds have absolutely no resale value. Trust me. I’ve been trying to hock my diamond wedding ring for nine years now and can’t even get a bite on 50% of the appraised value. Whatever. Future boyfriends pay attention: You can woo me better with a great visit to a salon or money for clothes and shoes. Not purses though.

Anyway…

Yesterday, my oldest daughter, Cindy and I had a girl’s afternoon out. Sort of a pre-Mother’s day, pre-My Birthday afternoon. Her husband babysat the boys, and she and I headed for Gene Juarez. I recently lamented about having a bad haircut from a local stylist on this blog post here. Since my roots were becoming borderline trashy and I was looking and feeling decidedly frumpy, and my daughter also felt the same, we decided it was time to take that upcoming income tax stimulus payment and treat ourselves.

And I’m so glad we did. We had a delightful afternoon. Although the entire time at the salon we couldn’t see each other because we were with different stylists, it sure was fun when we were done to see how our “makeover” turned out.

Here’s Cindy and me before taken in the car before we got out:

But wait…

Before you see our “after” pictures I have to tell you about Awkward Moment Number One. After we got done at the hair salon, we decided we would go to the Mac counter at Nordstroms and Cindy could get her makeup done. There’s nothing that can make a young woman who just had a baby feel better than pretty hair and all new makeup. So we wandered over there and as we turned the corner, guess who was standing at the makeup counter and looked right at me? Yup. Bad Local Salon Hairstylist. Uh, HI! I waved, and clearly she knew I’d had my hair done. Can we say awkward? The color is exquisite, the style fresh and young, and I was walking about three inches off the ground. Who wouldn’t figure it out? Apparently she was there with her friend, who was getting her makeup done. We overheard them mumbling at the cash register that “she was the Hair Master.” Uh, ya, I think not.

So, without further ado, here are the after pictures. Is my daughter not absolutely beautiful? Well, her husband certainly thinks so.

A little slow on the uptake here… The Girl from the Ghetto tagged me with this some time ago, and I think I’ve been tagged for a couple others, but I don’t remember now. If you tagged me, please remind me.

Here are the rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites.
5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site.
6. And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

So, here are six things about me.

1. I love lilacs almost as much as I love roses. Best yet are purple lilacs. I got this lilac bush for $5 at a nursery closing sale some three years ago or so. I planted it and then promptly forgot about it. It’s survived high winds, snow, whatever else, and finally, this year it’s blooming.

   

   I  love lilacs so much I wanted them at my wedding but we were married too late in May for them to still be in bloom. But my mom did make sure I had some at my bridal shower though.

2. May is my favorite, yet most un-favorite, month. My birthday is this month. I was also married both times in May. Both marriages sucked. The first turned out abusive, and the second guy was, and still is, a serial non-committer. I am only grateful for the first one because, in the words of Joan Harvest, he spawned my lovely daughters for me. Thankfully, they have none of his horrible traits. My second hubby has been married twice since me, making for a total of six marriages he’s not committed to. I have no idea if he’s married still. I really don’t care. But I like May for birthdays and mother’s day. Now I have a daughter who is a mother so I can spoil her. Although, why do we call it spoiling someone? Isn’t it really cherishing them and honoring them? Yup, I think so too.
3. I don’t get angry very easy and I have a hard time crying. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel, I just must have my emotion sensor turned onto low frequency. I think getting really mad is a waste of energy especially when I learned that often there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. If there is, I do what I can to make that change. I rarely cry because, well, I don’t know why. It sometimes comes unexpectedly and surprises me, like when I went to Grandparent’s day at my granddaughter’s kindergarten class. I cried when my dad died, but the next day, we were all sent to Disneyland, so therein stopped the deep crying. Maybe I was all cried out by that time anyway. How surreal was that? Grieving yet enjoying a rollercoaster ride? My dad would have wanted it that way.
4. I hate shopping for purses. I had to get one this week simply because my free tote bag that my mom gave me broke and looked really tacky anyway. I needed something that gave off a bit more of a professional or put-together air rather than carrying a wallet, keys, cell phone all in my hand.
   
   (Not what I really bought)

   It took me an hour to browse the cheap purses at Target, and when I finally picked one out, when I was almost ready to check out, I went back and changed my mind. I am happy with my final $24.99 purchase.

5. I’m secretly scared of being skinny. I’m secretly scared that men will find me attractive and I won’t know how to handle it. (Hell, there are a couple who are interested now, and I don’t know how to handle it.) I’m afraid that those men will be as judgmental and perfectionistic as the past men in my life and I will end up hurt again. But I’m going to be skinny anyway, and to hell with the judgmental dudes. I’ll keep my hopes alive that there are more nice guys available than jerks.
6. I hate sushi. I don’t get it. Seriously. And I will never try it. Ever. Normally, I’m very open minded, but in this area, I will let my Taurus stubbornness reign. I’ll eat just about any other ethnic cuisine and enjoy it, but I won’t do sushi. My favorite cuisine? I guess I’d say Italian, and that would figure too, right? Since it’s usually high in calories, cheeses, carbs, everything else that I shouldn’t be having on my goal to being skinny.

So, there you have it. I am not going to tag people because I think all my favorite people have already been tagged.

(Also, I’m a rule breaker - so that’s #7 - cuz I just broke one of the meme’s rules. I break rules when they don’t make any sense to me. I dislike rules just for the sake of having rules. Right, that doesn’t fit here, because there’s a reason there is that rule, but still… you get my drift. I hope. )

If you want to do this, just let me know, and I’ll tag you if you want, or just let know so I can read your interesting stuff. Or, I’ll probably already know, since I probably already subscribe to your blog via RSS.

Yesterday I attended a Grandparents Day event at my granddaughter’s school. Since Elise is in Kindergarten, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to attend something like this. It was very, very special for me.

My daughter dropped me off at Elise’s school and there were older kids there handing out carnations to the grandparents. We then went into their little cafeteria where there were tables set up with baskets of crayons, sorted by color, and paper and cutouts and glue sticks - everything for a cute art project. Teams of older kids came by with large trays of cookies (I passed, thank you Weight Watchers) and there was also Starbucks coffee or juice. I chose coffee.

Then Elise and her class comes in and Elise comes up to me, hands me a little card she’d made, and gives me a huge hug. And she keeps hugging and clings to me as if to never let go. I swear, I almost started crying right there. This is a girl who I thought had no more time or interest in me and here she was tickled and delighted that I was there for her.

We then proceeded to do our little art project and the design was all Elise’s idea. She wanted a field of flowers. I think this is really special too because she and I have had some very sweet times together planting flowers in my yard or my containers. And I learned something new: Elise’s favorite flowers are tulips and roses.

After our art project, we got to go to her classroom and she showed me around. Her favorite part was the pretend “store” where there was even a toy cash register with a credit card slot for payment! Oh my, oh my. Then we had fun playing with building blocks while I waited for Cindy to pick me back up and it was time to go.

I had a wonderful time, and the whole event will stay in my memory for ever. And I’m framing that picture to put on my office wall.

(Oh, and when my kids were in school, I was always the very youngest parent and I often felt out of place. Now I am the very youngest grandparent, and the older grandparents were looking at me like, your her mom, right? Uh, nope. <BIG ASS GRIN> I love it.)

Today, I was at my daughter’s and we thought Cayden went out into the back yard. Cindy went to investigate and we saw him sitting on the ramp outside the front door. He’d turned on the water hose and was watering everything in sight. I snuck out the front door and captured him on video.

And now you know why I can’t get enough of these kids.