A Triumph... the Home Office Is Conquered

I am sitting here alone at 10:53 p.m. smugly smiling to myself. As a celebration of the fortitude I exhibited over this past holiday weekend I just blew a bunch of $$$ on the Pottery Barn Samantha Bench with raffia-colored cushion and honey wicker baskets. Why, you ask? Well, I am absolutely delighted to announce a major news item at our humble home... I have frickin' conquered the paper, receipts, brochures, junk mail and other useless crap (99.9785% of it paper) that I had been hanging on to for more than THREE YEARS in our home office/laundry room. This lovely piece of furniture will take the place of the plastic Wal-mart laundry basket that I over-filled with paper until it was sliding off the top.

Yes, that's right, THREE YEARS worth of investment receipts, check stubs, health insurance billing, kids artwork from school, restaurant receipts, and on and on and on. For some reason, I have never quite got a handle on managing our home filing for bills, etc. since the kids were born. Maybe because work and home have become so intertwined with the business I let the home stuff just pile up... it didn't seem important in relation to the Bennett Contracting stuff that I was doing. After moving a bunch of the crap across the street before our renovation started in earnest and then moving it back 10 months later in bags and boxes, Jason had basically had enough. Please, keep in mind, that we moved back into the house in May of 2007, so in addition to what was moved over there and back, I had accumulated another year's worth of paper stacked willy-nilly and in leaning towers all over the place. For awhile Jason took every opportunity to throw a sarcastic remark to me about the paper avalanches in the laundry room/home office, but he gave up a few months ago. Maybe that was the motivation I needed. Ha! Yeah, right. I do think that I really surprised him with this radical departure from the norm. Now, what do you suppose he's going to be giving me shit about next? Well. I don't care because now my laundry room/home office will officially become the laundry room/home office/mudroom with the addition of the pretty little PB bench right next to the door to the garage.

California - Part Deux

OK, yesterday's blog covered the first part of our trip, which was in Sacramento, but the second part of our trip -- San Francisco, has yet to be addressed, so here it goes.

We drove from Sacramento into San Fran on Saturday evening... it took us almost two 1/2 hours to go 75 miles into the city. Along the way, we discovered that Californians allow motorcyclists to drive on the dotted line in between lanes ALL THE TIME. As this is not legal in Florida, it kind of pissed us off. So, so some jerk in a Toyota SUV tried to pick a fight with us because Kevin was staying on the right side of our lane. Welcome to frickin' San Francisco. We finally made it to the hotel, had a nice dinner downstairs and called it a night.

The better portion of Sunday was spent shopping for clothes for Cindi! :) (Just kidding, Cindi!) We practically got lost in a Macy's so big (8 stories) that we were blown away that it still wasn't big enough to have ANY men's clothing. C-R-A-Z-Y. We took a cable car down to the shopping area and then meandered to Chinatown. We did the Alcatraz tour at 6 p.m., which was very cool (and chilly) and after getting back we decided to have some din-din. This is where things take a turn for the worse (for me, anyways). We ended up at some super-duper crab-tactular famous secret-recipe place on Pier 39 (I have no idea what the name of it was, but I do vaguely remember the waitress in her Slavic accent telling us 32 times about this frickin' secret garlic recipe and how the crab is perfectly roasted... it's amazing blah, blah, blah, blah). SOOOOOOOOOOO, like all of the other touristas visiting San Francisco we order the $100 "Crab Feast" for four. Now, I need to interject at this point that I have had only one Grey Goose & cranberry at the bar before we were seated, which I promptly sucked down b/c I was thirsty. I tasted Cindi's cosmo and decided to make a switch since there shoudn't be any harm in that, same liquor and all, right? Well, needless to say, three Cosmos coupled with the puny, miniscule portion of crab that I was able to wrangle out of the shell, made for a very intoxicated me. The rest of our party was feeling no pain either; Cindi had just as many Cosmos and the boys decided to drink their vodka on the rocks. Yikes.

I got up from the table to use the restroom and boy did it hit me hard. I can't remember the last time that I had trouble walking after drinking, but this was certainly one of them. And the fun was only beginning....

I had been mouthing off all weekend (JOKING, I might add here) about visiting one of San Francisco's most unique nightclubs, catch my drift?... well someone in our party got the bright idea to actually try to visit this place, where for the most part participation is encouraged and, per rule #7. You cannot laugh. OK, I am so screwed. Literally. I will save you the details, but we escaped unscathed and I, of course being as drunk as I was, missed all of the good stuff. All I could see was my new sneakers glowing in the blacklight and the six hundred signs posted on 8 1/2 x 11 paper that said NO CELL PHONES. Apparently Sunday is not a good night at the Power Exchange, but the next time you're in San Francisco on a Saturday night, please go and tell me all about it!

After the cab ride home (Thanks Mr. Cab Guy for sticking around and saving us!!!) I almost tossed my cookies in the elevator, but thankfully made it to our room. You know you have a great friend when their hold your hair off you face while you throw up, so thank you, Cindi!

I woke up Monday with the absolute worst headache ever (duh! Saw that coming, huh?), but I finally dragged myself out of bed at 11 a.m. CA time (2 p.m. FL time). We trekked to Ghiradelli Square and then on to Haight/Ashbury, where Kevin wanted to see Jerry Garcia's house. We came back for lunch on Fisherman's Wharf... everywhere I looked I saw c-r-a-b... not a good thing for me on that day, but I'm happy to say I survived without another incident.

We all took a late nap and Jason and I had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant at the Cannery. We left the next morning for the airport and got home Tuesday night. It was quite a fun adventure indeed. But I am glad to say that I am home now. Phew.

Five Days in (1/2 Sunny 1/2 Overcast) California

Jason and I returned last night from a much needed getaway to California. We started out in Sacramento last Thursday, which was for our "MasterMind" business building group... we determined that we (Cindi & Kevin Foshee) and Jason and myself are not MasterMinds when it comes to directions, though. We met up with our friends the Smiths, Lindsay and Gloria Smith and their son Phil run Cal-Pac Roofing in Rancho Cordova, a beautiful city, a 100 degrees hot city, but beautiful, especially the old West downtown. We had a great meeting, amazing dinner at Fat's and the best part was tubing on Lake Fremont! Some photos are shown above.

Working on them...

OK, so the personal assessment thing worked out interestingly... because this weekend I started chopping away (literally) at one of my number 7s, "organizing my home office." This happened because we finally, finally, finally cleaned out the garage. And then when I least expected it, a number 11 hits.

7. I am delighted to announce that The Bennett's Charity Store Mor (read: our garage) is just about closed for business since Monique took all of her stuff back. Scratch that, since Jason and I packed up all of Monique's stuff and moved it back from where it came. Now all we need to do is get Michelle and David's table and chair out of there and it will actually be home to ONLY our stuff! EXCITING!

Anyway, in the garage there were two filing cabinets and a multitude of boxes/bags/piles of paperwork that I have not filed/organized/looked at for more than 2 years. Yup. 2 years worth of receipts, bill stubs, health insurance forms, kids artwork, yada, yada, yada. Our little shredder shred his heart out. I stuffed it full at least six times and I think I'm about 1/2 way through the mess. There are little bits of shredded paper all over the laundry room floor, but I'm happy because I'm making progress. I think Jason is happy, too, because he hasn't even complained about the millions of tiny shreds and they're a pain in the ass, they stick to everything!!!! They are beginning to appear all over the house. Sneaky little suckers.

11. I missed a phone call from my step mom on Sunday. My Dad had a blood clot in his lungs and was rushed to the hospital. He was in intensive care all day Sunday and was transferred to a regular room on Monday morning. The kids and I drove up to Inverness to see him Monday afternoon and came home Monday night. I am exhausted, but happy that I went. He doesn't look so good. Love you, Dad, and hope you get better soon!

By the way, for Mother's Day Jason made his famous spaghetti sauce. Yummy! I'm going home for lunch now to have some! :)

A Personal Assessment

Just thinking about things... and trying to quantify my abilities... and inabilities. I believe the results of this assessment will be very scary.

THINGS I AM GOOD AT...
1. Rollerskating.
2. Writing.
3. Spending money.
4. Wasting time.
5. Talking.
6. Socializing. (Is that a sub-cateorgy of #5?)
7. Being positive.
8.
9.
10.

THINGS I AM NOT SO GOOD AT...
1. Ironing.
2. Listening to my husband.
3. Anything that has to do with having willpower.
4. Any abdominal related exercise. (I totally cheat through these at boot camp!)
5. Putting on make up.
6. Doing my hair.
7. Coming up with a quick comeback.
7. Organizing my home office. (see previous blog entry.)
8. Counting (see above).
9. Hiding my emotions.
10. Getting out of bed in the morning.
11. Dealing with bad news.
12. Flossing.
13. Programming electronics.

Yup. Just what I thought. I'll be back to this later. Many things to think about. But I need to be doing my 2008 budget right now. Always good to do that 5 months into the year, don'tcha think?

I wish I were 3 again...

Yesterday I went to pick up Bryce and Jake at their "school" I like to say school because it keeps me from saying "daycare" and makes me feel better about the fact that I'm not home with them 24/7, which I certainly couldn't handle anyways. (Shit, I can't handle the 48 continuous hours of a weekend with them!) ANYWAYS, I walk in and Bryce and her little friend Ryan are dressed up like gypsies... running around the room laughing and squealing... and I realized for the first time in a long time what a pleasure it was to be a kid. No bills. No headaches. No mortgages. No illnesses. No death. Everything was a frickin' joy ride. For the most part anyways. I think what I'm going to do now is really try harder to be more spontaneous with them and for them, which will probably make my life a lot better, too. Sorry for the philosophical entry. I am just sitting here realizing I could be playing with them now instead of on the computer.

Hershel Fastwheel

Mommy's new ride is the MB R350. Yes... an outrageously frivious and extravagant purchase especially in these crappy economic times. Oh well. I freakin' love it. We've named him (yes, it's a him, we're sure) Hershel Fastwheel. Hershel because he resembles a hearse (my morbid conribution to the name) and Fastwheel is the last name Jake decided on. He probably would have said Hot Wheel, but I think Jake knows that Hot Wheels is trademarked and we don't want to get sued, you know. Smart five-year-old.

Mommy - M.I.A.

What the hell? I cannot believe that I am that much of a loser. I mean, November. Come on. Yesterday I helped start a blog for the BOHOs (a very select group of hot Mamas who get together once a year away from our families to P-A-R-T-Y!) and I thought... what a terrible blogger I have been so I better just get back into the swing of things and make a post. Let's see what has happened since I last blogged..... Hmmm.... my husband keeps losing weight by running and he is looking hotter and hotter! YAY!... Christmas, New Year's, SuperBowl, Birthdays (Jason and the kids).... a ton of crap that I haven't chronicled. Oh, well. Here's a pic of the BOHOs at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday night (actually Sunday morning). We look damn good for that time of night, don't you think?