May 13th 2007

Mother Day 2007

Before I get to the update about what’s happening here let me wish all the Mothers in my life a very Happy Mothers day, and a very special congratulations to Amber who is celebrating her first Mothers Day with Gavin. She is doing such a wonderful job of caring for him. Hopefully Dorothy had a wonderful and relaxing Mother Day. She deserves it after the week we have had.

First the job situation. On May 20th I will work my last day of 14 years at AdvantaCare. It will be a very sad day for me. I really do love homecare, however the profession has changed and my longterm goals will be better severed at this time by being in the hospital. I will start full time at Watsonville Hospital on May 28th. I have been working there 1-2 days a week since April 1st. That is really the reason I have not updated the blog much this month. This was my first two days off in two weeks.

The remodel has been fast and furious this week. The Solar company showed up to start on Monday and decided that the roof was not in good enough condition to install the solar. So we hired a roofer to install a new roof on the section that will get the solar panels. My hats off to Knox Roofing, I called them Monday at 10am, they removed the old roof by 2pm and then they worked with the Solar guys to get the panel supports into the rafters and install the new roof by Wednesday. The Panels are to go up and be tied to the electrical system on Monday, more pictures on that on Tuesday. We spent much of Saturday cleaning out old junk that I did not want laying around after the remodel. Got rid of my lawn mower (no grass in the new plan). The front yard has the driveway set out but we, and several of our neighbors, love the look and decided to have Kai continue the driveway all the way around the house to the shed and back door area. So its not done because we had him order more material. Picture shows where we are so far. Driveway looks huge in the picture but it really is just two car widths. Kai has been held up a little this week with the Solar guys and the Roofers but he has done some grading in the back gotten rid of the mound that was my lawn and brought in some top soil to level the area. Of major importance to me is that he has staked out the location for the cement slab that will be the location of the hot tub. I noticed that the red bags of cement are already there in this picture. While I am very anxious to have this in place I doubt that I would go out in the mess of our current yard to use it. The deck will be coming in the next 10-15 days. Its coming along very nicely, hopefully we won't have any more major non-budgeted items.

The boys are doing fine. Edward finishes his time at Cabrillo College the first week of June. He will move on to a Job training program in July. Teddy is finishing up the junior year and looking for a job. Slowly but he is talking about it. Hopefully it will happen soon. I am slowly getting used to the "Dad can I barrow the car" routine. He is a good driver but it still worries me to have him out with the car.

Revel completed his intermediate obedience class and has received praise from many people on our walks to the beach for his excellent demeanor and behavior. We have come a long way together. Not done, but we have come a long long way. Elda has now started taking Libby to the same trainer and has already made fabulous strides with her. Both Mom and Elda will enjoy the benefits of having an obedient dog that brings joy and love into your life with a lot less frustration and unpredictability. I know that Dorothy and I are way happier with Revel now than three months ago. The contractors absolutely love him.

Enough for now have a safe week and drop me line of you like the blog.