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After my amazing Hawaii vacation and catching the flu, I spent this weekend putting my ducks in a row and getting back into the swing of things. I unpacked, did massive amounts of laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed the living room and gave Pixel a bath. Rick and I spent time together, catching up on TV and getting breakfast at the local golf course clubhouse.

Now I’m working on catching up on mail that piled up during my vacation and organizing all my projects and tasks. That would have seemed overwhelming just a couple weeks ago but I’m finding that vacation was a much-needed rest for my brain and body. I have a lot of work to do but I’m not freaking out about it anymore, no longer paralyzed at the thought of everything I have to do. All in all, I’m feeling confident and fairly serene.

Of course, we’ll see how well I’ll be able to hold on to that feeling in the coming days

2007 has been such a great year. I accomplished projects that seemed insurmountable at their beginning and life has definitely changed for the better.

A year ago saw Rick and me standing in Mom’s driveway, surrounded by a massive pile of junk and frantically calling Cathy for advice on how to deal with it. Cathy very kindly came over to help direct Operation Empty-the-Garage. A few weekends later the 10′x10′x20′ garage that had been packed to the ceiling was almost completely empty. The rest of the house and yard followed suit over the next few months.

Finally, the house and practice were listed for sale. And I was finally able to start moving my life to the Central Coast, where Rick had moved a year ago. The apartment search took longer than I thought but I found a charming loft in Los Osos and moved in in August. I left my in-house designer position at j2 Global to pursue a freelance career. I got rid of that piece-of-junk VW Jetta and picked up my super-reliable Honda Fit. Pixel is healthy and happy to be away from the day-to-day awfulness that is Hollywood. We both enjoy our visits to LA, though. (Pixel and Murphy are now good buddies and the Fit’s up to 11,000 miles already!)

Now to plan  2008. What seemingly-insurmountable goals will I complete this year? I still have about 10 hours to figure that out…

Happy New Year, everybody!

More pictures of Tina and Joey’s visit on Flickr

A couple of friends from my old job came to visit a few weekends back. Tina and Joey showed up with bags from Trader Joe’s in tow. Best house guests ever! Although Pixel started out being very unfriendly he soon warmed up and was soon following the guests wherever they went, hoping for more peanut butter treats.

Rick and I took Tina and Joey for some light hiking in Montaña de Oro state park Saturday morning. In the afternoon we visited Tobin James, Eberle and Frank Ross out on the 46E for some wine tasting. Sunday morning we went for breakfast at the golf course clubhouse and then they were back to LA. We all had a fabulous time!

(You can check out pictures from that weekend by clicking the photo above.)