.jeri.

Heya!

How was your weekend? Mine was good and full. It started out well with last week being the shortest work week of the year - Monday was a holiday and Friday was the first short Friday of the summer at work. So, after 3.5 days of work, I was out the door at 11:30am on Friday and headed out to the mall. My sister and I did some marathon shopping, and I was happy to find out that my back is getting a lot stronger, because I was able to shop for about 4-5 hours without feeling crippled by the end of it. I stocked up on some clothes and made note of some I'll buy when I return with coupons, got some new makeup, and found some new kitchen items in the Martha Stewart section at Macy's. I swear, that section will be the end of me. After the shopping together, I dropped my sister off and went to Target for more shopping, then headed home for a short-lived break, after which Ric and I headed to uptown to check out some kittens in our quest to find a sister for Pip. We picked out a little calico, and we'll be returning to pick her up in a week, when she'll be about 6 weeks old. We're still deciding on a name. After a good dinner at Panera, I joined up with my sister again and we went to see I Love You, Man at the cheap theater.

Saturday Ric and I woke up early to call in and make a vet appointment for Pip because we noticed something like a hemorrhoid on his rear end. They didn't have anything until the afternoon, so we drove my car to the shop to check out a rattling noise we've been trying to pin down for a while. We left it there and went to a wildlife preserve in Whittier for a nice hike. We never knew the place existed until someone at church mentioned it. It turned out to be a gem - tons of natural life with a minimal path paved through it. Between the hills, we couldn't even hear the street noises. It was flowery, fragrant, and an overall breath of fresh air.

We went home for lunch and I spent a while working out with my new Wii fitness thing, which was tiring but good. This thing has potential, that's for sure. We took the cat in, and they said what he's got is more like a tumor, although it's not a normal looking mass because it's stringy rather than lumpy. I'll be taking him in on Tuesday to have it removed, and then they'll biopsy it to see if it's malignant (80% are malignant). Then we went to pick up the car, and it turned out to be some expensive fan and pump (all Mini parts are expensive because they're too high-tech), which I'll be getting fixed on Friday. Thanks, cat and car, for taking all our money! After a quick grooming at home, I met up with my sister and we drove out to the Dorothy Chandler to see Verdi's opera, La Traviata. We made it early enough for the pre-show lecture, which was entertaining, and then settled into our disappointing seats (we paid a little extra to sit closer, and ended up only a couple rows closer than where we sat in the past), which were made up for by great costumes, sets, and performances.

Late Saturday night we had another power outage, this time from some balloons that ran into the electrical wires outside our complex. The power came back quickly, but it screwed with our clocks. I thought I had a decent battery backup on my clock, but apparently the battery is old, because when I thought I was getting up on time for church, I was really 40 minutes late. We missed service but made it to Sunday School, then came back home to get to work on the house. Ric did all sorts of office organizing, vacuuming, and got our closets all squared away. I got our towel situation in hand (they were in three different closets and not organized at all), and then set in for some painting in the kitchen. I think I'm finally done with paint in my kitchen, which is a nice feeling. I also did some touch up in the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs bedroom. I read some Harry Potter for a while and then napped an hour or two away, and got back to painting. I finished watching season three of Roseanne and am now on season one of the Brady Bunch. Then Ric's brother finally pulled into town for his business trip, so we went over and spent the evening at the in-laws' place catching up with each other. Tonight the rest of the family is off to a Dodger game. There are only 4 tickets, so I thought the people who actually like baseball should go.

Up this week: I've got physical therapy continued, Pip's appointment tomorrow, an MRI for my neck and shoulder on Wednesday, my car appointment on Friday, and we're gearing up for new investment property shopping over the weekend. Busy times!