I finally feel like I earned my pay today! I worked hard and I got a lot accomplished. As I mentioned before, my boss has three meetings next week – one in San Francisco on Monday; two in L.A. on Tuesday. When he has these client meetings he brings along a folder with two pockets. There are different documents that go in each folder for each meeting, along with a spiral bound PowerPoint presentation. I don’t type most of the documents.
I do make minor changes to the PowerPoint presentation, changing the name of the client, the date, who will be at the meeting from our firm, and sometimes other small changes. Most of the documents are done and I just have to find them on the network, send them to Fulfillment (printing department) and give them instructions as to how many copies I need and whether or not it’s one or two sided, bound or stapled, color or black/white, etc.
Doing the work for three meetings in one day was a lot, because it’s confusing. Each client gets different documents or different versions of the same document. I checked and double-checked and I hope I got it all right! All I know is that it was all done by 4:30pm and I was exhausted.
I thought Eric was taking me out to sushi tonight, and I was really looking forward to it, but when I got home he said there were two great basketball games on TV tonight and he didn’t want to go out, so we’d go tomorrow night. No biggie. I got undressed and into my pajamas, watched DR. PHIL and had a snack of celery and hummus.
After that show (Eric was already watching basketball in the living room) I made a NUTRISYSTEM entrée and watched THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE, then ELI STONE.
My friend Robyn, who lives near Temecula with her husband, Sal, called to catch up. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken and we filled each other in on everything that’s going on with us. Robyn is another of my “faithful ten” – someone who religiously reads my blog every day.
Since I haven’t known her very long (she’s really my niece Melissa’s friend and we got in touch and became friends because we both moved from New York to San Diego!), I am especially flattered that she takes the time to read about us every day. She expressed her concern for Eric and what he’s going through. She says she knows it is hard to adjust, because she and Sal are also new here and know what it’s like.
We promised to get together for dinner soon since she works very close to where we live. I’m looking forward to it!
I got an email today from the woman who bought our house. She and her husband and two gorgeous daughters are really enjoying the house – finally. They did SO much work that they weren’t able to move in until November! Remember – we moved out August 11th! They thought they’d move in on September 1st, but it took almost three months longer than they planned. She sent a bunch of pictures of the renovation, a few of which I am sharing with you all today!
The living room, with the sun shining in their new door. New floors, new closet door new banister, new ceiling fixture!
There is a good reason for the delay. They renovated almost every square inch of the house. The only things that are left the way they were when we lived there are:
1. The long built-in wall unit in the living room (which Eric lovingly built). I’m SO glad they didn’t tear it down. I was worried about that!
2. The French doors in the dining room, although they DID put up gorgeous shades. I never covered them, because no one could really see in and I loved the sunshine all day long!
3. The shelves at the end of the hallway – between the bathroom and master bedroom.
4. The master bathroom.
5. The upstairs bathroom.
6. The dining room set. That’s the table and chairs that I sponge painted and decoupaged, which was part of the deal for the sale of the house. The realtor said that Cynthia fell in love with the set and wanted it to come with the house. Since I was planning to sell it anyway, I was more than happy to give it to her (and very flattered, too!).
Samantha's room in the attic -- which used to be the leopard room! The crib is where the bed used to be. New walls, new floors. The dresser/changing table is the same dresser that was there when WE moved into the house 21 years ago. I left it for Cynthia. She painted it and put decals on it. Isn't it adorable? It's 1940s and it's still going strong!
Here’s what they DID do: ALL new floors throughout the house (except for the bathrooms), new window above the bed in the master bedroom, new bay window in the living room, complete new kitchen – and they broke down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and put up a wall that led from the kitchen to the hallway.
The master bedroom with the new ceiling fan and fixture, the new fabulous window above the bed (we had a small window higher up on either side of the bed) with a sconce on either side. The best thing about this picture? Zoe and Samantha, of course!
They broke down the wall hiding the staircase to the attic and put a new banister up. ALL new light fixtures (they even took down the ceiling fan in the master bedroom and put up ANOTHER ceiling fan!), ALL new doors – every single door, except the mirrored doors on the big closet in the master bedroom. They raised the ceiling in the attic rooms, added “pot light” fixtures in the ceiling (we always used lamps in the rooms upstairs, because there were no ceiling fixtures or light switches), enlarged the rooms by breaking down walls where the crawl spaces were, and also took away all the radiators and put in baseboard radiators, took out all the air conditioners and put in central air, and refinished the basement adding a third bathroom, and making a bedroom out of the area Eric used as a workroom (we haven’t seen pictures of that yet). Oh, and they painted EVERY SINGLE ROOM.
The living room, with new wood floors and the new bay window. I'm glad to see Eric's wall unit is still there! And there's that cutie pie -- Samantha!
Can you believe it? The house looks AMAZING. The sad thing is, we painted the whole house right before we moved out and the colors were great and Eric did SUCH a beautiful job, but they changed all the colors. Cynthia has great taste and I love what she’s done. And that’s just the inside! They also did new siding and will be getting all new lawn and front landscaping this spring. It’s hard to believe it’s our house. The thing that makes me happiest is that two beautiful little girls are living there, enjoying it and will grow up there and make wonderful memories.
Here's the bay window with the shade up. There are sconces on either side of this window, too, which is such a nice touch! Daniel (the husband) is an electrician, so he went all out!
The people who owned the house before us bought it when they were in their 50s, so their children were all grown already. We never had kids, so the house never really knew the pitter patter of little feet. Cynthia is pregnant with her third child, and it makes me so happy that there will be a sweet, beautiful family living there, raising their children and enjoying life on Leggett Place, which is as it should be. That house was so sweet, so cozy, so lovely and we enjoyed it for 21 years. Now, it is passed on to a beautiful family that Eric and I really fell in love with. We couldn’t be happier for them.
Here's a picture of the dining room, taken from the kitchen. Notice anything missing? The big, ugly air conditioner that was in the wall! The light fixture is new (but I think they'll miss the fan for circulating the air when you're cooking). I love the two lights hanging over the granite counter. What a room! Isn't it nice to see my table again?
Tomorrow and Sunday is all about running errands and creating more pieces for the Craft Fair. I am going to work like crazy this weekend, because I really want to get a lot done. I want to have more than I can possibly sell in one day – and then sell it all!