What a Day!

Sometimes at the end of a day, I will discount all the things I have done during the day. So I will list them:
1. Went over my August budget. Since I am now on a "fixed income." I want to monitor my finances carefully. I did that anyway, and it wasn't like I wasn't on a fixed income before, but now I am SERIOUS!
2. Made an appointment with B of A to see about setting up a rollover IRA. Their site was extremely helpful in guiding me to decide on a Rollover IRA. So I want to see if this is really for me.
3. Did some research on a trip I want to take. I want to see Europe. I wanted to see how much it would cost so I could budget (I hate that word!)--financially plan for a trip next year in April.
4. Worked in the Mandala Journal. I wanted to use a human figure as a starting point for a Mandala. It's probably not a real Mandala but it's okay.
5. Found a quote from Marianne Williamson and typed it up, printed it out and put it in the Judgement page of the journal.
6. Printed up some helpful pages from whenigrowupcoach.com, the coaching site from Michelle Ward. I will read them tomorrow during church (or after :)
7. De-trashed and washed all the dishes. I have a clean sink, Mrs. Fly Lady!
8. Talked to my sister on the phone about her new house. She is painting the inside yellow-ish. Nice!
9. Did my exercises! Ha!
10. Prepared the calendar for flowers for the Church florist. I use iCal.
11. Changed the bed linens and the quilt--with the help of the perrito blanco.
12. Went to church to deliver the linens I ironed and to set up the flower calendar for the rest of the year. I was hoping that the Altar Guild assigned people had done their job, but they did not. So I did that too!
13. Went to Stater Brothers to get the rest of the groceries that I needed for the next two weeks.
14. Made the P.F. Chang's Orange chicken for two. Not that Good! For One, two or seventy!
So this was a productive day! I did a lot! Whew! Now I need to soak my hurting foot and watch the rest of the movie I started.

Project Runway Episode 1!

Danielle came over and brought salad and a really good Caesar dressing and black olives and we sat down to pasta and rosemary rolls and lemon bars and swooned and heckled. What fun! Heidi's hair on the sides looked wonky (but I get my hair cut at Fantastic Sam's, so what do I know?), but the bangs looked okay. I think she will look back in couple of years and wonder why she wanted bangs though. And the color is different. But Tim! What a guy! The Times had a fabulously complimentary article about him here:Tim Gunn: 'Project Runway's' dapper dean - latimes.com . But really the woman from Utah with the dreadlocks? Come on! They should have let Casanova go but Danielle has a theory that they keep obnoxious people on for a while to give the show some excitement. Could be.
I am going out on a limb and choosing Gretchen as the winner. I think she is extremely smart and seems to know how to get along with Tim and the other people. I hope I am right. But really! Who cares?
So Danielle's surgery is today and all good thoughts and vibes go out to you, Danielle.
I was blog surfing and found Michelle Ward's career coaching site: whenigrowup.com. On her blog she lists 101 things in 1001 days. It's like a brainstorming/wishlist. So I decided to make a list and right now I am only up to 31.So I think I will add 32: I am going to blog every day!--yes--even on Christmas! Daily blogging from me about knitting, Stanley, art. How will you stand it?

Project Runway!

Starts tonight! I can't wait! Heidi has a new haircut and I have totally missed Tim--"Make it Work!" and "This troubles me." I invited my friend Danielle to come over and have dinner and talk back to the tv with me. I am making pasta and she is bringing some salad and I will make lemon bars--and she will take the left overs home. She is having minor surgery on Friday morning and she can have a lemon bar treat when she feels up to it. The good thing about Direct TV is that because it is on Eastern time, I can watch PR and know all about it by 7 p.m. This year I am going to predict the winner as I have done in the past. Last year I picked Seth Aaron from the very start and I held out even though all my PR friends thought I was wrong. Ha! Ah! So little excites me!
In the Art room, the mandalas continue. Yesterday's mandala was about eyes. The mandala is Sharpie pens and watercolor. When I was little I was carefully watched every moment and all my movements were commented on and judged. In their defense, none of the people who were watching me had a real childhood. So I think they were watching me to see what a real child would do. But there was a judgement aspect that transcended pretty much everything I did and it is difficult to leave that behind. So the Eye Mandala is about that struggle to go on and to do what I need to do and to do it whether people are watching or not. (But they aren't)
Anyway, I get to watch someone else tonight!

Mandala Journal day 2

I finished the cover on the Mandala Journal and worked on two pages today. The cover is brown paper painted with acrylics. The Heal my Heart page is scrapbook papers and a heart doily. The Heal my Mind page is a scan of a Leonardo da Vinci anatomical drawings book someone graciously gave me. The writing is sharpie ultra fine and then colored pencils.
The heart page came as an inspiration and I would like to try it again with different colored papers.

And now for a really funny joke about consultants, which pretty much seems impossible:

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW 7 Series advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Cartier sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?'

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, Why not?'

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his HP notebook computer, connects it to his Nokia N95 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany...

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-Tech Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'

'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?'

'You're an IT Consultant', says Bud.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required.' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew,to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of
sheep...'

''Now give me back my dog''.

New Art Journal

Every summer I make an art journal. I have more time in the summer and I like having a way to document my ideas for other projects. This summer I am making a Mandala journal. All the entries will be mandalas--at least that's the plan today! As usual, I rescued a book from the trash. This was the Richard Scarry Best Word Book Ever, which was my children's favorite book when they were little. It was in bad shape and sometimes I use the pages, but in this instance, I tore them out. Then I made two signatures of watercolor paper and sewed them together. I taped the pages inside the journal using transparent duct tape. The cover is not decorated yet, because I wanted to get started inside first. I will cover the cover (!) with fabric, I think and then paint a mandala on.
The first entry is a healing mandala I constructed.
I am looking forward to making more entries in this journal!

Saturday--or is it??

When one is retired, every day is Saturday, really. I have this whole routine for Saturdays that involves running around and getting a lot done so that I can rest (a little) on Sunday before I have to go back to work. But that's not the case anymore! So i was at odds today. I kept thinking I need to hurry, hurry, hurry and then I would remind myself that I did not have to go to work on Monday. Finally, I gave in to my confusion and took a half hour nap. When I woke up, I folded laundry (casually) and managed to go slowly through the rest of the day. I think it bothered Stanley as well. I am not sure if he is used to me being home so much! My mind and body need to get this retirement thing together!

Gratitude

Today I spent a lot of time trying to get organized. There is so much paper work in my life, and I really haven't been on top of it. So i used a lot of time to organize the various things I need to keep current on. I have a binder for bills and a binder for my investments. And I made a binder for my health/retirement benefits. I already have a binder for my "life." This took me forever! So when I was finished, I ran out to send the invitations for the party.
No trip out is complete without a trip to a thrift store. I needed to buy towels and I went to the Lutheran High School Thrift store and found some for $1.50. (The towels are for the party, since we are doing a spa thing.) Then I went to Goodwill in Glendora and got a "Kate Spade" purse (again!). This is gray flannel and adorable. I might give it to my sister for her birthday.
On the way back, I decided to make chicken salad for dinner. I was going to barbeque chicken breasts and then I would make Ina Garten's chicken salad recipe from the Food Network. As I was driving down Foothill (Route 66) a family was soliciting donations for a funeral. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to beg on the corner to pay for a funeral for a loved one. Luckily I actually had money and gave some. I was so touched by the sadness in that whole thing. There was a little boy on another corner and he was soliciting too. Good Grief! How sad!

art work

Behold! The scanner is connected and I have scanned some work I did. Not the greatest, but still productivity! The red flower is the front of a Thank You card. The purple flower is another card. I did the text in Photoshop. I am hoping that spending four hours a day practice will reap rewards. It does keep me off the streets and I am not knitting so much! Both good things!

Church and Tea

Today I went to church at 10 am. I have always wanted to go to church during the week, and Holy Trinity has a 10 am service every Wednesday. The Rector, Mother Judy, will be on vacation in a couple of weeks, but I can still go next week. There were only 5 people--all women--there. And Mother Judy gave another great sermon. She is very inspirational! The building itself is so beautiful!
From there I went shopping for some things for the gift bags for the party. i have to decide tonight what I want to have for refreshments and then call tomorrow and finalize. I also have to call Jessica and tell her about the change in venue.
At 1 Amy and I had an appointment for tea at "Two a Tea." We got the full tea and it was delicious! We had soup, salad, scones, sandwiches and dessert. I had strawberry/apple tea. It was so relaxing! I want to go again--maybe after school starts.
Then I was exhausted and went home and took a nap. Tina had called to tell me some school news (gossip). So I had to tell all my friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Now I need to get to work. My art awaits!

I am a Super Woman!

Okay, maybe not. But I did put together this BOOKCASE that I bought at Walmart about two months ago! Yes! I used tools: a hammer and a philips and a flathead (!) and I hardly used any curse words! Whoa! And I did it in One hour and 20 minutes. This bookcase is in my office and will hold the scanner and some notebooks and office supplies in bins. I am slowly getting organized so that I can develop my art.
I was in a real panic this morning since the venue I had tentatively booked for my party was not being cooperative. I woke up at 2:30 this morning wondering where I would have the party. But I am back on track with a new venue and a really nice plan. I am waiting for the new venue to get back to me on the details. I hope everyone likes what I've planned!
Yesterday, Matt, Greg and I went out to Round Table and Matt showed me his Monk and Psych bobble head doll apps. I had to have them. When you press areas of Monk's body, he says stuff. The Psych app includes Gus and both say things--as well as bobble.
And tomorrow I am going to tea with Amy. She gave me a gift certificate to a tea shop in Glendora. I remember the tea at the Fairmont in Victoria. What a treat! I am looking forward to this as well.
Now I have to clean up the mess I made putting the bookcase together. If the art thing doesn't pan out I guess I could always help people put together furniture!
Hahahahahahahaha!

Happy Fourth of July!

I wanted this Fourth of July to be quiet and dull, and I got my wish! I went to church and then went to get ant spray. I have been overrun by ants! I use the Grant's Ants Stakes, but I thought maybe I needed a spray to clear off the area in the kitchen and then use the ant stakes for prevention. My goal for the fourth of July was to clean out the refrigerator. I intended to only work for one hour, but then when I realized that that was not enough time for what I wanted to do, I brought the portable DVD player into the kitchen and watched Leap Year. Amy Adams! What a cutie pie! And the guy playing Declan! I would have loved to have met someone like him when I was in Ireland! The movie was one hour and 40 minutes and in about two hours I had cleaned my refrigerator and freezer and hauled out mass amounts of freezer-burned food to the trash can. I also marinated some steaks I got on sale at Winco and prepared some chicken breasts for barbecue. I am thinking I will barbecue a lot this summer.
I barbecued chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and skewered Portabello mushrooms I thought it was good! I also stuck a potato wrapped in foil in the coals and baked that. I had cherry pie for dessert.
I decided to give Stanley the benedryl so that he would not be stressed about the fireworks. He was very mellow and quiet. At one point he was on my lap having a hard time holding his eyes open.
Comedy Central had a whole stand up day, and I dvr-d some of the comedians. I really enjoyed Gabriel Iglesias, I like DVR-ing the stand ups, since I can fast forward some of the more "unpleasant" parts. It's not the language so much as the intimate personal details of someone's life! I don't need to get into anyone else's life right now.
So, quiet, and dull and funny. And celebrating the freedom of a clean refrigerator without those annoying science projects!

Clean car!

Now that my car is fixed, I was going to wash it but the guys at the Victory Outreach Car Wash did that for me for a donation of $10. I am going to wash my own car from now on but this was an emergency.
Yesterday I set the timer ("My timer is my best friend in 2010" says Fly Lady.) and worked in the kitchen for one hour. I really got a lot done! Then I decided to do one cabinet per day and I did the pots and pans. I wiped down the vinyl stuff I have in there and then put everything back.I intend to see what stuff I can give away, but have pared down alot in that area, so nothing was thrown away.
Today I worked some more in the kitchen but my big contribution was to church. I went to church and put in new candles and polished the pews on the north side of the church. I could spend three days of 24 hour days and still not be done with that job.
And here's a picture of the cross, newly restored by Eddie, the miracle worker, What an artist!

Another day of retirement!

Yesterday I took my car in to the mechanic--I have a wonderful mechanic, who is honest and fair and nice!--and I asked Tina to come pick me up. My plan was to go to the thrift store in south Chino and then take her to lunch. Tina is limited to 10 books per thrift store, since she hoards books and has about 11,000 at her house (and about 20 in her car). I could not resist the clothes, as usual. I found a thermal hoodie! I always get so cold and this will be perfect! I also found two French laundry jackets. who knew French Laundry made plus size????? And a long banquet sized table cloth that I decided to drape over a chair for right now. The fabric is multi colored and embroidered. It looks Asian, almost Thai. I also found an unopened box of materials for papermaking for a whole classroom. I thought about Danielle and today I talked to her and asked her if she wanted it for her future class. But then we decided to get together and just make paper. Lots more satisfying!
We went to Lucilles for lunch and I had the fried green tomatoes and the fried dill pickles and the greens and for dessert (!) we had red velvet cake and peach cobbler. I am in this not eating much mode (a good thing!), so I had leftovers. Tina and I are going to sign up for some cooking classes and we went over and did that. Then we went to the Senior Center to sign up for a trip to the Mission Inn in November. it was so hot out and the mechanic hadn't called me back, that we decided to hang out at the senior center for a while. We got their menu and I am definitely going to attend lunch a couple of days this month! It's $2!
The car needed an oxygen sensor and so that was $450, but I know it will run better. I did clean it out before I got there, so Mr. Johnson wouldn't say too much.
I was so tired from that whole thing I took a nap and then worked on stuff until 11. But then I woke up at 1 am and couldn't go back to sleep until 4! I think my body is getting adjusted to no work.
I love the idea that if I don't sleep, I don't have to go to get up early and go to work. I can sleep in or I can nap or??? This is a good deal!

I'm Back!

Well, six months is a long time to go without posting to my blog, but my excuse is that I was very busy and stressed. And here's why:
My school district offered the veteran teacher's a generous incentive if we would shuffle off to another ice floe and never be heard from again. Although it wasn't put that way--as a matter of fact, it was quite respectful--I had a hard time deciding whether to take it or not. But in the end, I did. On January 15th I signed and sent in the paperwork to confirm my retirement from the Pomona Unified School District. Unfortunately, there were still 6 more months of school to get over!
This year was one of the hardest I have ever experienced, so retirement was looking more and more positive. And yet, the doubts and the worries were endless. I did some intelligent things to allay the doubts, though:
First, I went to the STRS counselor and had him run the numbers for my retirement income from State Teachers Retirement. So I had concrete figures that would help me decide. If I only had the look of students' faces to help me decide, I would have long ago retired!
Then, I went to my CPA (who moved to another company, and who charged me a lot of money for his advice), and he ran the numbers for me also. The incentive is in the form of an annuity and the company in charge of the annuity offered 15(!) options on how to receive it. The CPA ran the numbers and helped me see which option I should choose.
Finally, I consulted my life coach and she helped me make the emotional decisions I needed to make.
Teaching has been a huge part of my life. It has saved my life and the life of my family in some ways, since I took the job to rescue the family when my ex-husband was out of work and in the hospital. And I did what a lot of people do: I got involved in the job and left my family to its own devices. I WAS a TEACHER first. Lots of coaching and therapy and praying for forgiveness has helped me see the errors I made.
So now I am on to the next Creative Passage. For at least the next year I am going to focus on ME;
Becoming a better ME. I think I know what that means but I l will be exploring it for this next year.
My new Creative Passage will be to develop the best ME possible.
This should be interesting!