Category: Journal (Page 1 of 880)

I had adventures yesterday! Yay!

I wanted to go on a drive somewhere. I decided to go to a really big IKEA in Burbank, north of LA, and WAY north of where I live. In the map below, I was the blue dot at the top, and my house is halfway between Torrance and Carson at the bottom.

The IKEA was indeed huge, and it was in a beautiful location at the foot of some hills.

I walked the whole place. Whew! The most interesting thing I saw was a “focus workstation”. How fascinating that this is what we’ve come to:

My ultimate goal was finding this:

Woo hoo! I was so excited. It matches one I already had to hold my Invisalign teeth tray packets. I have half of them so far, and my first box was full. I wanted a matching box to hold the rest:

While I was was up north, I searched for garden centers. I did visit some Armstrong garden centers, which is a wonderful chain store here, but I also visited a local nursery.

It was fantastic. Among other things, they had a whole building full of giant, old, and expensive houseplants:

The drive back was a bit traffic-y, but it was fun to see areas I’d never seen before. I always say that as I get older, seeing new places and experiencing new things become more and more precious to me.

A month ago, there was an earthquake that lasted a while and everyone felt. A few days afterward, when I was in my back yard, I saw some cracks in the cement block wall between my yard and my neighbor’s. I think they were new.

This past Thursday, there was another earthquake. I didn’t feel this one, because I was driving to school. It think there are new cracks in the wall.

I called a masonry place, and the guy was supposed to come yesterday afternoon, but he didn’t. I’m hoping he will still come. I have such a hard time calling and meeting up with skilled tradespeople.

I have said that I would join our church choir. I missed last week, because I was with the eighth graders, doing their beginning-of-the-year retreat. I was a little nervous about going last night. The rehearsal ends at 9:30, which is so, so late for me.

Then, after school, I saw an email the director sent, saying that rehearsal was canceled. I was so happy! It was a gift of unexpected free time – the best kind of gift!

I went home early, stopped at a hole-in-the-wall diner that makes amazing burgers, and ate while sitting in front of the tv.

Then I went to bed early.

The sun was very red yesterday morning. I don’t know if it was the forest fires I’ve been hearing about on the news, or just a magical combination of pollutants, but it was really striking. I took pictures whenever I stopped at red lights.

I still haven’t hit my stride yet with my morning routine. I need to be leaving for school earlier than I am. I’m going to try going to bed earlier to see if I can move a little faster in the mornings.

Happy Birthday to my niece Rachel! Woo hoo!

Yesterday was my first “School Work Sunday”. It went pretty well. The grading part of things actually didn’t take very long, but there was a lot of set up stuff that took more time. Still, I was done at 2:30. Nice!

When I got home, I rested a little then went outside to mow the lawn. Finally. It’s needed it for a long time now. I actually took my time and used the edger and string trimmer first:

I was almost done, and noticed some wasps flying around me. They seemed to be coming from the grass. There was only a small wedge of grass left, but the wasps were really flying around it a lot.

I didn’t want to get stung, so I tried hitting them with the electrified tennis racket thingy I use on indoor bugs. I’m not sure that it did anything to the wasps, but eventually I didn’t see them any more, so I could finish.