I don’t like living for the weekend…but that’s what has happened this week.  My job remains crazy.  The rest of my life is slowly getting caught up.  

I joined a local cause.  I am on the “new” library board.  Our town library was private and due to financial reasons is now going to be part of our city.  It’s a change and change is always hard.  I am passionate about libraries and gardening.  So I am going to do what I can to make this transition happen as painlessly as possible.  Not only am I on the board, I’m on a committee.  (there are way too many double letters in Committee)   Once the transition has happened, we plan to have an open house to let everyone see that change is not always a bad thing.  Stay tuned.  This could be an exciting adventure.  To quote Frederick Douglas:  Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

Sunshine and warmer temperatures tomorrow.  Hopefully Dennis can find some dry ground somewhere in our yard to plant the broccoli.  

It was below freezing when I went to work, but this afternoon was warmer. The sun was also shining.   Very busy at work.  Lots of just plain craziness.  One mom thought I was her PMS chew toy.  Fortunately when the parent is just talking (mostly spouting ignorance) on the phone, I can make funny faces and stick out my tongue and roll my eyes.  It eases my stress and amuses the students in my office.  So I can hang up politely at some point, without having been drawn into the negativity or stooping to the parents tactics.  My day was not “ruined” and hopefully she felt better afterwards.  I’m not always able to be “zen” about such situations, but it’s nice when I manage. 

Had a wonderful time with friends, eating delicious salads.  Another person made the same recipe I did…too funny.  We’ve done that before. Great minds think alike.  Looking forward to next month when we do Mexican in honor of Cinco de Mayo. 

Another busy day tomorrow, but things are slowly getting caught up.  

busy at work. Long hours.  Much work to do at home.  Got the essentials accomplished.  Tomorrow will be a fun evening…getting my hair cut after school and then 1st Wednesday Club—salad theme potluck.  I made a pretzel strawberry jello salad.  Totally out of my comfort zone.  Not a single fresh ingredient in it.    It’s one of those “salads” that I always think should be dessert.  The only thing missing is mini marshmellows—it has cool whip though.

It’s below normal temperatures for a while, with a warming trend that ends in rain, rain, more rain.  Starting this weekend.  Dennis hopes to find a “dry” spot and mud in the broccoli on Friday.  

I’m overwhelmed. I thought I’d be caught up today, but I’m not.  Doesn’t look good for tomorrow either. 

No spectacular pranks in my world.  Just a few “your shoe is untied”.  A couple of the teacher’s got creative and “hid” another teacher’s class.  Not sure how that all went down, but it must have been amusing.  Probably picked all the kids up from PE early or something.  Rumor has it that she is already plotting revenge. 

It was sunny but on the chilly side today.  Supposed to be in the 20′s again tonight and possible rain/sleet/snow early tomorrow morning then warming to the mid 30′s.  Not spring yet.  Just a few scattered warm days here and there to tease us.

I think my body is almost back on Missouri time.  Jet lag yesterday was killer.  Lucas is home looking handsome. We left him an extra day so he could get groomed.  

Got my tax information turned in and we OWE…yikes. With zero dependents and only able to do the standard deduction (not enough qualifying deductions/expenses to itemize) we really got it socked to us.  Time to go “no spend” for a while.  At least we had our vacation BEFORE we got the bad tax news.  

3/25/13   Sierra Nevada Brewery.  I want to work there!   The workers are happy and they love their jobs.  It’s a “green” company. They offer great medical/dental/mental benefits.  They use REAL HOPS—grown in different places to get different “flavors”.  Their beer is good too.  Hard to come by here in Missouri, however.  We had lunch at their restaurant—fish & chips with a beer.  good stuff.  This is where we had our “educational” sampling of different brews. 

3/26/13

We headed down to Los Angeles (Paul driving).  We were supposed to meet Hannah at the Howard Johnson  in Korea town (I had no clue it was Korea town when I booked on-line).  The main problem was parking.  Paul had free parking in the HoJo garage, but Hannah had to fend for herself.  Anyway, she parked and walked in the opposite direction…but Paul finally  tracked her down and got her to the hotel.  We all stayed there so we could have lots of time together…not that we spent a lot of time in the hotel.  But we had breakfast and started our mornings “on the same page”.  

Hannah had invited several friends to join us at “The Boiling Crab” for her birthday dinner.  The place was packed so we ordered our seafood “to go” and ate it in the “bar” next door.  As long as each person orders a drink, it’s all good. Me, Hannah & Dennis toasting her birthday with saki.  Friends Kaitlin, Jen, Marissa & brother Paul.  The good was great but messy. which is why it came with a bib.  

3/27/13

Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach.  Riding bicycles.  Fun

3/28/13

Universal Studios

Shows: Water World & Blues Brothers

Rides:  The Simpsons; Jurassic Park; The Mummy’s Revenge.  No photos allowed.

Photo Ops:

With just me & Dennis, it’s been an unusual Easter.  We did the Easter baskets with Matt, Sara & Jax before we went to California & with Paul & Hannah while we were there.  More focus on the Resurrection and real meaning of Easter.  

Dennis got our broccoli plants back…looking good.  AS soon as there is a spot dry enough, they need to go into the ground. He started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.  He is supposed to also start zinnias & marigolds.  I took a walk around the yard.  I found ONE grape hyacinth  I also found a dandilionand saw some leaf buds on the lilac bush. 

Beans & cornbread for supper.  

3/22/13   It was too early to check into the hotel when we got to Lincoln (Paul picked us up at the Sacramento airport).  It was too windy to do anything outside.  We ate a sandwich at the Beach Hut Deli.  Then we decided to go bowling.  Dennis beat Paul by a few points the first game, but Paul beat Dennis the second game.  None of us bowled very well…although we all broke 100 the second game.  I will put part of the blame on the birthday party happening in the lane next to us. This was about 1 PM.  I have no clue why they were not in school.

3/23/13

The day started with breakfast at Awful Annie’s.  Paul and Dennis were on their “usual” good behavior.  NOT.  It was good food and a good time.  Paul’s neighbors Jake & Lisa were our “guides” that day.  After breakfast we headed to the Napa Valley to sample some wine.  This is at Artesa Winery.  It was not down in the valley like most of the wineries; it was the only winery we actually sampled their wines.  According to Jake & Lisa, this was the best wine/winery around.  The winery is also trying to be more “green” with irrigation practices and using solar panels to supply part of their electricity. It was beautiful and peaceful there.  We ate at another winery, actually in the valley.  They had fresh bbq and wood oven pizza.  It was also very crowded and we decided to find a less popular winery for more wine tasting.  In the end, we stopped at the Sequoia Winery and bought a bottle of wine to share in their wine garden.  

3/24/13

Sacramento.  Old Town Sacramento to be exact.  We got there about 30 minutes before anything opened (arrived at 9:30) so we got to walk around in relative privacy for a while.  We went to the Train Museum which was fascinating and educational.  It was extremely well done, from the tour/history to the way the displays were arranged.  We then did the Underground Tour…which allowed NO PHOTOGRAPHY.  It was fascinating.  There were different tour guides, who told the history from his/her perspective–dressed in period clothing.  Ours was Sam Brannon, who started out his exploration of California as a possible site for the Mormons to settle.  By the time he got to Salt Lake City where a large group had already settled, he decided to split with the church and seek the wealth he saw in Sacramento.  He knew the wealth was in the land and not the gold; but he did get rich for a while, as a merchant & used his newspaper to spread the work about Sacramento.  And had a hand in getting the Railroad to go to Sacramento.  Unfortunately he is less well known than other figures during this time, and uses the tour to try to set things “right” about his importance.  The original Sacramento burned and flooded many times before the people decided (at their own expense) to raise the buildings and build a levees to protect it.  The “underground” is a maze of “basements” under the buildings and tunnels under the streets.  It is also an active archeological excavation site.  Paul plans to go back with Jake & Lisa and take the tour with a different guide.  

No trip to Sacramento would be complete without seeing the Capitol.  After looking at walls of stodgy portraits of former California governers, this photo of Jerry Brown stood out. 

On the way home we checked out an Ikea Store.  WOW.  I was impressed by the size of the place and the furniture and accessories….and the prices. 

It was nice to get back to Missouri…even if it was drizzly and 50.  We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home.  Dennis needed some “greens & beans”.  LOL  Last night we ate at The Stinking Rose in Beverly Hills.  It was fun and the food was good.  A bit pricey for our life-style, but a good way to end a vacation.  There was lots of garlic in all the food.  They even offered Garlic Ice Cream for dessert.  None of us tried it.  We ate in the room called “dracula’s grotto”. Our table was below this photo of Dracula, claiming “Even I eat here”.  

It was nice to be back in our small town.  Our next door neighbor came over when he saw our lights come on tonight…just checking to be sure it was US turning on the lights.  He filled us in on a few of the “happenings” while we were gone. SNOW, inches and inches of snow, was the main topic. 

This morning we tried to find the place where Hannah once parked and hiked to the Hollywood sign.  We traveled on some winding and narrow residential streets, but never found the place.  We did see some nice houses, as well as a closer and different view of the sign. Then we drove to Point Firmen Park and Lighthouse.  Unfortunately we were there at 11 AM and the light house didn’t open until 1 PM.  We walked around and then headed for Olvera Street where we ate at La Luz del Dia restaurant.  I had tamales with beans & rice.  They were very good.  We walked around the area and watched some dancing to celebrate the previous native local culture.  We also strolled down a couple streets in Chinatown and checked out Union Station.  Then Hannah dropped us off at the hotel so she could take care of some of her personal business and we are all supposed to clean up…so we can go out to a fancy restaurant later.

Then back to MO tomorrow.

We headed for the Santa Monica pier after breakfast.  We got a photo of Dennis at the END of Route 66 sign; we also got a photo of him with a parrot. We saw 2 seals in the back of someone’s boat, tied up at the pier.  Later we saw the boat owner shooing the seals out of the boat and they went on their merry way.  We walked along the beach for a while.  Seaweed was washing up and there were quite a few people enjoying playing out in the waves.  A few surfers.  I didn’t realize until later that I’d gotten some tar on the bottom of my feet.  Just a couple of spots but it is hard to get off. 

We rented bicycles and rode from The Santa Monica Pier down to Venice Beach. We did some people watching and got hamburgers, fries & a coke at a beach food stand. It was good but I had some fries I didn’t want to finish eating.  I thought I’d just toss them into the grass near where we were sitting. Bad idea.  The sea gulls and the pigeons were both very aggressive and thought I should provide them with more fries.  Fortunately we just hopped on our bikes and rode away.

Now we are back at the hotel, showering and napping.  Hoping to get a second wind before we go in search of supper.