Busy Week

It's been a very busy week. I owe several long e-mails to some friends, my to-do list seems to be getting longer instead of shorter, and it would be nice to get more than 6 hours of sleep in a night.

The week started out with a sick daughter and keeping the grandbaby all weekend and though Monday. I didn't mind that at all, but when they're two years old, it's all about them. You don't get very much accomplished beyond playing with the two-year-old. Actually, I love it and I'm not complaining. That was the best part of my week.

On Tuesday, though, I had to go on a three day business trip to California. I had several meetings during my stay there, but I managed to spend the first evening at my son's house. Since I wanted to spend some time with him, I really didn't do much work after the normal workday ended. I played Rock Band with him, then we went out to dinner with some friends of his, and then we came back and watched a Meg Ryan movie I've never seen before.

Although it only took me 45 minutes to drive up to his house from the San Jose Jet Center, it was a 2 hour commute back to San Jose the next morning for my meeting. The traffice was absolutely atrocious, and I had been warned that it would be. What I can't understand is how people put up with that. After my 8 years of a 4 mile commute to work and back, I certainly couldn't handle it.

My Wednesday meetings went well, but I still had much to do. I spent most of the evening working from the hotel. The internet connection there was terrible, though, and I had a heck of time getting much done. I didn't even try to work on any personal stuff. Finally I had to call it a wash and get some sleep.

Thursday meant travel back to Portland, and although the flight isn't that long, dealing with traffic getting back from the airport can be a real chore. Add to that, the cramped seating space aggravated my right knee and the arthritis in it flared up and I was barely able to walk. The rest of the afternoon was packed with meetings and phone calls as I tried to follow up on some time sensitive information that I required.

On my return Thursday, I discovered Wanda had a new "project" in mind which included me completely reworking one of the upstairs bedroom. She wanted to convert her craft room into a combination hobby room and kid's bedroom so we could have small guests over for the weekend without them having to sleep in the floor or on the couch. In fact, even as I write this, Ben's kids are sleeping on the floor and the couch in my family room after a long night of pizza, chips and Rock Bank.

Ben is, of course, my oldest daughter's boyfriend. The two of them had a work party to attend last night, so we agreed to watch Stephanie (13) and Trevor (11) both of whom are great kids. We also had our grandbaby again, so we had a full evening. My son had got me playing Rock Band, a music game for PlayStation 3, while I was visting his house, and I thought it would make great entertainment for when we have both kids and adults over for parties or just an evening with friends. It's quite fun and Stephanie, Trevor and I had a blast pretending to be a Rock Band. Makayla, the two-year-old, loves music and she was dancing all over the place. At some point during our play, Wanda got out the video camera and was recording us all. I'm sure that blackmail video will show up somewhere on the internet.

But I digress. Friday evening and Saturday morning was spent working on Wanda's projects. We finished cleaning out the garage, and then we went a picked up a set of bunkbeds for the room (which took a couple of hours due to evening traffic). On our return home, I spent much of the evening trying to copy all her files from her desktop over to her laptop, since part of the plan was to retire her desktop computer so she could use her small desk as a craft table in the closet of the bedroom. I also managed to find time to put together Makayla's new tricycle for her birthday today, as well as a Radio Flyer Wagon for her to use here at the house (and to carry my photo gear when I'm shooting out in the field - it's dual purpose toy).

Most of the day yesterday was spent putting an overhead light into the closet space so she would have light in her craft area. I'm wiring a combination switch and outlet so she has both light and power where she needs it. The problem is deciding how to route the wiring so that it remains primarily within the walls as it's an add on and I really don't want to crawl around in the attic insulation to make it happen.

Still, I did manage to spend quite a bit of time with Makayla yesterday. She led me on a merry chase through Home Depot when I went back to get some fasteners, and together we planted 25 Nasturtium seeds in peat pots so she can watch them grow over the summer.

And today is her birthday. We'll be going to a party later this afternoon and we have lots of presents to open, a Nemo birthday cake to eat, and games to play and pictures to take. It will be fun, but I don't know when I'm going to get to finish wiring that light!