Renewal...

image from Mari's blog 365 Days

in the calm of daybreak

when morning first begins...

 fog settles softly

caressing clusters of trees

gentle breeze vibrates

tall stalks of wheat

whispering

inviting opportunity

for fresh renewal...

~dkb~

My First Apple Interview....

Today I went to a group Apple interview on the 64th floor of the Trump Tower in Las Vegas.  I was the oldest one there...but it was exciting and invigorating being around so much talent and youth...I LOVED IT. 

They told us we should be proud to be invited to an interview because they hire less than Harvard admits to their College...

I have been attempting to get hired by Apple since 2009...so today was progress.  Let's hope there will be a second...

Confessions of a 65 Year Old Woman...

I know I have not been consistent with my writing on my blog...and not with my weight loss either.  As some of you may remember I had a work out plan to lose twenty pounds by my 65th birthday.  I turned 65 on June 8th and did not lose hardly any weight.  Well, I did lose a few pounds, but with all the company we had, I gained it back.

One would think all the moving and packing I did in prep for the laminate floors would have carved some weight off me....but no....nothing.

Now that I am 65 my Medicare Advantage plan, Humana Gold Plus kicks in.  It will pay for my Curves membership.  Even when I paid from my own pocket I did not have much success with Curves, but I am going to try it again.  I have some girlfriends who are doing it, so maybe they will help me stay focused and committed...  I just HATE gyms as I have written many times...

I have promised myself not to get down on myself and just re-group.  At our family BBQ, I invited my husband's ex wife because she was staying with the kids here in town planning on attending our grand son's graduation.  I decided long ago to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem in keeping my husband's large, extended family together, so I made nice with his ex's.

She and I sat and talked for a long while about the Caveman Diet... has anyone ever heard of it?  She lost 30 pounds (her goal) over four months and then lost 12 more over two more months!  That is incredible!  If I could just lose twenty pounds I would feel so powerful and motivated I could keep going!  She said it is quite a commitment and not an easy diet to follow, but it sure works.  She did not do any exercising either.  She also hates gyms.  She told me if I exercised I would probably lose a lot more weight.

We went to see What to Expect When You Are Expecting yesterday.  It was cute.  My husband loves comedies.  I have to admit I got teary eyed in a few scenes because anything about people giving birth or little babies makes me cry.  I was a blithering mess when I took my two young daughters to see the original Parenthood with Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen after my divorced.  I was crying so hard after the movie, I could not drive.  I sat with them on a grassy knoll outside the theatre and sobbed loudly.  My poor pre-teen daughters kept gently asking if I wouldn't be more comfortable crying in the car....

My youngest daughter, now a Mother herself,  called me the other day and told me she watched it on TV and had to call me as she remembered that day so vividly....

Normally I would be beating myself up for not reaching my goals....but I am so proud of how much I have accomplished around the house in my de-cluttering and re-decorating as well as creating more of a social life, making friends and being more socially active, I feel confident I will meet my goals eventually because I really want it.

I am learning in my older age (approaching heaps of wisdom...I hope) how important it is to be gentle with ourselves and with others.  As a wise person once said, "Don't sweat the small stuff, for it is ALL SMALL STUFF." It will all unfold as it is suppose to unfold...If I am so locked in and focused, I will miss all the blessings and laughter along the way...

Thoughts on a Hot Thursday Morning...

** image from Pinterest

On this hot Thursday

I'd rather be transported to

a cozy chair beside a large picture

window, enjoying a large cup of tea

or coffee....reading a great book

or surfin' the web on my mac book...

I long to hear the pitter-pat of hard rain

leaving the fresh scent rain always does...

~dkb~

I am thankful I am sitting inside our cozy, air conditioned, home, in my rose chair, music playing, and the soft sound of my mac's key pad as I type...I feel really good.

I am drinking a cup of my Donut Shop Mocha Coconut coffee....delicious!

My plans for the day are to hang out the flag to fly in the hot breeze,  attempt to talk with my Father at the nursing home, take a shower, wash my hair, then go see a movie with my husband.  He wants to see What to Expect When You are Expecting.  A comedy sounds good to me...

Despite the heat, I feel light and breezy.  I spent several hours in our 100 plus degree garage yesterday sorting through the books from my bookcases...I am still deciding which ones I will keep, which to donate or sell...  I am liking the low maintenance, less cluttered atmosphere we are creating inside our home...

Tomorrow I get my eyes examined and dilated.  I need new glasses.  In the evening we have plans to join my girlfriend for a concert in the park celebrating Beach Boys music...  Should be a fun night.

My doctor's office called yesterday and called the surgeon's office on my behalf.  I have an appointment on July 5th to check the lump in my right arm.  I will hold positive thoughts and continue to wish it to dissolve and go away...

I have missed blogging and look forward to finding a more consistent opportunity to get back here, visiting and sharing...  Happy Father's Day, Happy Flag Day and everyone please have a safe, fun, weekend whatever you find yourselves doing...

Before and After Pics and What's Happening...

I am tardy in getting the before and after pics of the laminate floor project because I had five days to get everything put back together before two sets of company arrived.  My girlfriend Connie arrived last Monday and left Thursday morning.  Our friends Diane and Ernie from Tucson, arrived around 2pm on Thursday and left at noon today.  Tonight we have a family BBQ for eleven people...

So here are the Before and After Pics:

Above is our living room/great room area...it is so packed with furniture the area you see is about all of the floor you are able to see.  (Scroll down a couple of posts and you can see how it looked when it was carpeted...)

Above is our master bedroom.  We got a new area rug for the great room and took the rug above from the great room and put it in the master...

Above is the guest bedroom....

And last but not least....the office:

My girlfriend gave me the new cover for our futon.  I used the pillow shams filling them with old bed pillows and now it looks like a cozy couch.  I have great plans for this room.  I want to brighten it up and make the atmosphere in the room more inductive for creativity.  I found a few bright and colorful paintings while thrift-storing and shopping with my girlfriend Connie.  One is quite heavy, so I have to get the right hardware to hang it properly... stay tuned for those pictures.  

That lump in my arm?  Still don't know what it is because I cannot get into the surgeon's office!  When I called my primary care doctor to complain, they told me they could not reach them either.  I guess Monday I will be calling my new Medicare Plus Plan customer service to complain.  I just turned 65 this month!

Our family to due to arrive in a few minutes, so I will have to continue later....until then, stay cool, stay healthy and happy...

One More Room...

The installers have one more room and the transition strips between the tile and the new laminate...hopefully they will be finished by noon.  My husband and I plan to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and run some errands...we both are stir crazy!

I over prepped.  I plan to call the company we purchased the laminate from and get a refund because they charged us for the installers to dissemble and rebuild three things...they only dissembled one bed.  Everything else they barely moved from the room, they moved everything to one side of the room, laid the flooring and then moved everything to the other side.

Izzy is perplexed without the quiet carpet and the "click, click, click" noise of her nails on the laminate.  She likes to sit and lay on the carpet she takes her long, sleeping sound snoozes under our bed....so I had the installer guys cut a piece for under the bed.  That is her surprise today...

She had to be crated inside the house yesterday morning, and then we put her out on the patio with her water dish once the morning sun was gone.  She did really well with all the noise, and believe me, there was a ton of noise.  We had foundation cracks so they had to smooth out the floor...we had told them they could work as late as they wished to get it all done...but by 6pm we both were on our last nerve and asked them to finish in the morning...

I still wish we had carpeting...especially when I was lying on the floor yesterday re-hooking up our desktop to get back online... Same with the TV in the office...it still does not work.  All I get is static.  Guess I must have not hooked up something correctly...will figure it out later...I plan to lay on a thick blanket or pad when I do!

Will post pictures of the floors by week's end...

I have been debating whether I will put my bookcases back...as much as I love my books...that was such an undertaking...and then I did not even have to remove them because they never moved the computer desk or the futon out of the office!  Oh well, at least I can give everything a good cleaning...

Nearing the Finish Line...

Google images

I am nearing the finish line...next Tuesday, May 29th, we get our laminate floors installed.  It may take two days... Hopefully I will have the rest of the prep work, packing and measurements finalized so we can put everything back without much trouble...

The biggest undertaking was breaking down my four bookcases and twining up all my books and moving it all to our garage.  Reminded me of when we moved in....It was such a chore it really made me question my love for my books...

We have to remove everything off the tops of all our furniture, empty out all the heavy furniture, unplug all the electrical in the entertainment center, TV stands and computer desks, and stash those items in closets, garage and maybe out on our patio....WHAT A PAIN!

I had planned on boarding Izzy while the house is all torn apart, but today I found out they are booked solid until next Thursday due to the Memorial Day holiday... so she may have to be crated and walked every three hours like we did when we had the patio pavers put in...more work for me!  My hubby pulled his back muscle while helping, so he is unable to help.  I need him rested up for Monday night when we dissemble the dresser and remove all the electrical equipment from the computer desk and the entertainment center...

Here is a picture of our tile leading into our living room carpet...soon to be removed and laminate flooring replacing it...

We are having a neighborhood Memorial Day BBQ & Potluck tomorrow...we completed getting the front of the house trim, shutters and the decorative wrought iron fencing on our front patio painted; a storage rack installed on the ceiling of the garage for our bins of holiday stuff...so this celebration will also mark the half way point for all our projects.  We also promised the neighbors we'd have them over to see the completed patio pavers project.  I am so looking forward to a day of rest and relaxation before diving back in to the last four days to put this last big project to bed!

This is the sample color of the laminate flooring we are having installed: I think it is a nice warm color....we are planning on having the grain go into to the room rather than horizontal to the tile as it shows in this picture below...I hope it looks OK being our tile is set on the diagonal....

This is the hallway leading into our office where we will also replace the carpeting to laminate wooden flooring: (Pardon the mess, the entire house is torn apart...)

My bookcases used to be lined up in the hallway leading into the den...I have big plans for the den....despite the limited furniture placement, I am going to change the colors from blue to cranberry and will be eliminating as much of the clutter as I possibly can...

The new flooring will also replace the carpet in the master bedroom...

(The covered stool on the side of the bed is how Izzy hops up to sleep on her pink blanket....)

And last but not least, our guest bedroom carpet will go as well, replacing it with the laminate...

I hope I like laminate floors...everyone tells me I will...I will miss the warmth of the carpeting in the winter...but guess we will be wearing our shoes a lot more inside the house.  I better!  This has been a huge, time consuming project and I will be SO HAPPY WHEN IT IS OVER!