Moved Out...

We made it! We are moved out of the Aeolia house and living in the Russell Rd house...not moved in mind you, but living here. There are boxes everywhere and as much stuff as we got rid over the last month, I predict more is on it's way out! Today I need to get laundry done (washer is working but not the dryer), move boxes to their respective rooms so that the living room and kitchen both function, make sure my homework is done and make sure I spend at least 30 minutest practicing the piano today. I am loving learning how to play the piano! One of those life long dreams coming true.

 

I'm sure there is more to share, but I am simply scatter-brained and can't stay focused on one task for more than a few moments. That's what happens when there is complete disorder in ones house! Happy Monday and more so, Happy Fall!

Total Chaos!

Hey Friends,

We moved this weekend and we are still up to our eyeballs in boxes, paper and general chaos. I'll catch up next week as I am expecting that all of the physical moving part of this move will be over by Saturday and then we will just need to concentrate on setting up house and getting situated. Keep your eyes peeled for a housewarming invite in the near future as we aren't truly "home" until our family and friends come and share our space!

 

Moving and Winning!

Happy Monday, and happy it is! We are in full blown moving mode and next weekend we will be living in the new house. The nice thing is we have more time than just the usual weekend-move. Between packing boxes, moving boxes, submitting change of address cards, and school Mason and I have been training to run a 5K in November. We just finished week 3 of our running program and along with that, I've been in a killer PE class at school. I've lost 6 lbs since school started and other than my knee needing some periodic special attention, I'm getting stronger.

This weekend was the Gold Country Fair in Auburn and Mason and I entered both the brownie contest on Saturday and the cupcake contest on Sunday. Mason took first place both days winning a whopping $50! I took first on Saturday ($25) with my Ooey-Gooey-Decadence-Brownie and second on Sunday with my fig cupcake. Kudos to Mason, in the brownie contest, he was the only entry in the youth category but the judges called him up to face the crowd when they announced that if it was a single category, he would have won the whole thing! Holy cow! And I just got done being sassy and telling him it was a good thing he wasn't competing against me. It looks like the student is becoming the teacher. Congrats Mason, you earned both of those prizes.

 

So this week is full of football practice, homework, packing and moving some more. Pop over to my blog to see pictures of brownies, cupcakes, and the new house. On September 30 at 1 PM, Mason will be doing a cooking demonstration at the Auburn Fall TomatoFest. He has been practicing and has two great kid-friendly tomato recipes on tap...and maybe one more. If you want to come, let me know and I will get you tickets, it's going to be lots of fun.

 

 

 

Let me leave you with my original poem, "Ode to My Aching Back."

 

Ode to My Aching Back

Oh the bruises we will get,

When it's time to move our shit.

Boxes, beds, dressers and more,

Makes our muscles more than sore.

Once we get there, time to unpack,

"Holy Cow! There goes my back!"

Rest, then stretch, then walk a tad,

Pop some pills, it's not so bad.

No matter what, you have to finish,

Escrow closes, it's the business.

Find your vice and imbibe! Imbibe!

Our rest is coming, crawl in bed and hide.

My Weekend A'la Carte!

The Labor Day holiday brings a short work and school week, and according to Mother Nature, fall is on the way! I had the most amazing weekend, actually all the Partak's did okay in the fun department this weekend. Dave and Mason were in the bay area for a game convention (bi-annually, Memorial and Labor day weekends every year) so I made some weekend plans of my own.

 I went to Lake Tahoe and spent two glorious days with just me, myself and I. I took off Friday afternoon and took the long way to Tahoe. I went up Hwy 80 through Truckee stopping at my favorite thrift store. The tone for the weekend was set when I found a registered Brighton handbag for $24 and guess what? Everything in the store was 50% off! Wahoo! A Brighton handbag, likely sold new for $190-230 for $12! I got into South Shore, checked into my hotel and headed back to Emerald Bay to see about taking some pictures of the blue moon. Full and magnificent, it was a sight to see over Lake Tahoe, but there just wasn't a safe place in the dark to set up the camera and take some pictures. I made my way back to do a little gambling and then called it a night.


Saturday, bright and early, I went for a run (found a pretty silver bracelet along the way), grabbed a coffee and then tootled the neighborhoods yard saleing. I had no idea that South Lake Tahoe was such a garage/yard sale meca! I scored again with a pair of darn near brand new Burton snow board pants for Mason for $3. After a full morning driving around with the top down, oh yeah, I was in the Solstice. Lots of fun for a weekend away, but not so good pulling up to yard sales in a little red convertible sports car. The thing is, it looks way more expensive and ritzy than it is so it made it hard for me to haggle when all people wanted to talk about is the car. I grabbed a veggie sandwich, a trashy tabloid magazine, changed into my swim suit and hit the beach. The day was simply perfection. After getting a little sun-kissed it was time to shower and get ready for my date, yep, I had a date with Sammy Hagar! The show was outdoors at Harvey's and it was fantastic! Sammy rocked for nearly 3 hours first with the Cabo Wabo's (his current band), then Michael Anthony of Van Halen came out and jammed and finally, Denny Carmazzi and Joe Satriani joined him on stage for some old school Montrose tunes. If you are not a fan, this all sounds a bit Greek, but for those of you who are, you are totally kicking yourself for missing this show! I was completely high dancing and singing and dancing some more. I ended up at a Let It Ride table where I won, tripled my money, played a little more and left with twice as much as I came in with! I bet you are thinking, Wow! What fun she had. Yep, I did, but there's more. Sunday morning I headed out early and with a pumpkin spice latte in hand,and made my way to Apple Hill. The trees are chock full of apples and fall is in the air. I finally made it home with apples, peaches, a pie and a great big smile!


So let me ask you this, when was the last time you took off for a weekend all by yourself? If it's been a while or you've never done such a thing, make plans and go! There is nothing quite like doing whatever you want, whenever you want to do it...especially if your life is nothing like that usually...like all of us working/students/mothers/fathers/etc. Give yourself a gift and if being by yourself makes you uncomfortable, just to get you started, pretend you are me! Hey, how bad can that be? Smiles!

Surprise Vacation to Minnesota!

Happy Monday!

Fall is in the air and I hope it's early arrival doesn't mean winter is coming early, too. Either way, the temps are lovely and there is already a hint of fall color appearing in the trees and grasses here in the foothills.

Mason and I had an amazing surprise vacation to Minnesota. We had just enough travel hiccups to give Mason a taste of the flexibility and patience that is required with connecting flights but even more fun, fun, and super fun once we successfully arrived. We slept over in Minneapolis and started our first day of vacation at the Mall of America and is it ever big! Other than the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park inside the mall, it's a high end, big, beautiful mall. As you all know, Mason earned his own money for this trip and he spent it, for the most part, wisely. He bought his own unlimited ride wristband, a pair of Vans shoes, he spent an hour and had a lot of fun making a Minnesota Build-A-Bear and finally, he shopped multiple stores before finding the best deal on a banana board skateboard. One of the cooler things at the mall is a ropes course. With four levels and all kinds of wacky ways to criss cross, back and forth all while going higher and higher, once at the top the climber gets to slide down a swirly slide. The other rides were fun, too but this one was what Mason wanted to go back and do again before we caught our plane back to California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the great day at the mall, we drove north to Julianne's house and it was here that the fun really began! To save you all from a very long writing, let me list all the things Mason took full advantage to experience: Ate at White Castle Hamburgers - twice, daily time jumping on the trampoline, he learned to ride a mini dirt bike, shot multiple air soft guns in a private range, learned about fine jewelry and got to see lots of real, loose diamonds, went paddle boating, learned to knee board, played basketball and poker at the lake house, caught tree frogs, visited the largest open iron ore mine in the world, climbed and played on humongous mining trucks and equipment, we visited the Minnesota Discovery Center and rode the trolley, played tennis and somehow had time to play, play, and play some more. Whew! On our way back to the airport we stopped back at the Mall of America and Mason made it to the top of the ropes course...he didn't quite muster the courage to get all the way up the first time so he was pretty pleased with himself as we made our way back to the airport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was an amazing trip and I am so glad we did this together. All in all, he was a great travel buddy and even when I screwed up our return flight time and put us at the airport almost 5 hours too early, he just went with it. I hope that his memories of our surprise vacation together will be as fond as mine are, after all, how many boys get to go on a week long surprise vacation with just their mom? Ah, maybe it is not that uncommon, but that doesn't make it one bit less special to me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we are all back in school and in high gear preparing to move. The timing is working out beautifully with our rental house being made available to us to start moving boxes in before we actually take possession on 9/15 and we don't have to officially be out of this house until 9/25. Moving is never easy or fun, but with the houses in such close proximity to each other and having almost a full month to move, how much easier can this get? If you are interested, I am planning to have a virtual yard sale on Facebook by posting a photo album of the more valuable things we have for sale...if you are in need of shelves, storage cabinets, a Juiceman Juicer, other kitchen appliances and so much more, be sure to connect with me on Facebook.

 

Have a great week and be sure to visit my blog to see pictures of our Minnesota vacation. If you subscribe to my Monday Motivator blog, you can get the weekly post in your e-mail box with the pictures included! Easy and fun.

 

Traveling...

Mason and I are on our way home! We had a wonderful time in Minnesota and now we are returning the rental car and making sure to catch our flights.

See you next week with lots about our trip!

Keep the Faith

Happy Monday!
It is finally here, the week Mason and I leave for our surprise vacation. Okay, it's not a surprise anymore, he knows we are going to visit Julianne and her family in Northern Minnesota. We leave tomorrow afternoon and get in to Minneapolis late. We will spend the night and then visit the Mall of America on Wednesday. This little side trip is why I have encouraged and helped Mason make some spending money (by the way, he made $187!). I just couldn't imagine him in America's biggest mall with no spending money of his own. We went to the local mall yesterday and one of the kids shoe stores had Vans on sale, and for those of you who don't know, Mason loves the Vans line of shoes and clothes. He had planned to buy a pair of Vans when we got to MN, but hey, here we were and they were on sale. I loved watching him shop so mindfully when he was having to spend his own money! He sat for a moment and thought about how much he had made, what he wanted to buy while in MN (specifically, an unlimited ride wrist band for the amusement park) and made his decision about buying the shoes. LOVE IT!! It's moments like these that I feel like I am doing a good job as a mom.

On other important fronts, we found a place to rent! It's less than one mile from where we live now and basically, in the same neighborhood close to town and Mason's school. I am over the moon about what a lovely little house it is. It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath on a lot that is maybe a little smaller than where we are now. It has a deck of the whole back of the house with a portion of the deck covered with a ceiling fan for those warm nights when you want to be outside. There is no grass but other outdoor living areas with rock walk ways, lots of little planters, fall trees, a fig tree, a lemon tree, an apple tree and an outdoor fire pit. Oh, and another perk, it has a hot tub! The kitchen is small, but it is lovely, all white tile with newer appliances. Finally, there is a breakfast nook popping right out of the front of the house, just another fun, quirky feature of the house. Having lived in a larger space, we will have some adjustments to make, but all in all, this is a great place for us to live until it's time to make the big move. I'll send out change of address once we sign our lease and know for sure our deal is done! We also got word that our short sale has been approved and we close on 9/25 - perfect for our 9/15 move in to the new house. Finally, it feels like things are going our way and working out without a continuous stressful effort!

School starts for Mason this week, but he will miss the first four days as we'll still be summer vacationing. He and I will have to hit the ground running when we return late Monday as we will both have to get up early for school on Tuesday. Maybe I will enlist Dave to write next weeks Monday Motivator and share his adventures while we were gone, that might be fun! Have a great week and keep the faith, I know it hasn't been easy, but it sure feels good to have some things start to work out easily.