Pilot Study of the 4 Day Work Week

My boss asked our CEO if we could do a pilot study of the 4 day work week and he said "sure!", so this was our first week. These are my findings to contribute to the study: (I was off on Tuesday because of my sewing class)

Had a White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks and read a book while waiting for the mall to open...(by the way, the book I'm reading is called "The Shack" and it's very good- I read almost the entire thing on Tuesday)


Enjoying the scenery of the outdoor mall until a bee landed on my leg and freaked me out: :-)


Then I got my hair cut and highlighted, ate lunch, played with Emma, got dinner going, and went to my sewing class to continue the table runner, which now looks like this:


All in all I think this pilot will be a success!

Jenny's visit and my tablerunner

Jenny came up to Northern VA last weekend because her sister just moved up here. They had a birthday party for her nephew so I went up to help out and visit with everyone. Robert had to stay home because I didn't know what the plans were until last minute so we had no one to watch Emma, but I was only gone for about a day and a half, so he didn't mind. Plus I'm sure he wasn't too keen on going to a 4 year old's party who he didn't even know....but anyway....

The next day we all took the Metro and went to the Washington Nationals vs. Houston Astros game..... the Nationals lost and it was scorching hot, but I still had a good time with everyone.






I've also been making a 9 patch tablerunner. It's not finished, but here is the top of it. I still have to sew the inner and outer borders and the batting and backing. To be continued.....

What we've been up to

I went to Busch Gardens with some girlfriends and fed the birds after we got soaked on a water ride (pardon the messy hair!)





Made my first stuffed animal- so ugly it's cute, right?


Had dinner with some friends this weekend and Robert made a new friend, Bella....

We also needed a new rug for the front door, and I came across this one while out with my friend Cindi. I just had to get it. I think it's funny, but I don't think Robert feels the same way!

Busy Week

We have had such a busy week! First, Robert re-did the ceiling on the porch because it was so poorly constructed. It took him awhile, but he did a great job, and now it's all ready to be stained. I love having a built-in handyman as a husband!
This picture is from about half way through the job....


Then, we both had to go out of town for work until Wed. night. One of my flights back home flew into Atlanta, and that's where Robert's meeting was also. Well, my flight into Atlanta was late, subsequently, my flight out left me just as I arrived at the gate completely out of breath. How totally annoying.... I was placed on a standby flight for 1005 pm or I was guaranteed to be on the next morning flight. I tried to get in touch with Robert, hoping maybe I could hitch a ride back with him, but he didn't get my message until late. Lucky for me, I decided that they were going to put me on the 1005 flight because it was their fault in the first place (AKA I yelled at them on Delta's hotline) and low and behold, a seat just so happened to "just open up". Yay! I finally got home at 130 am on Thursday and guess who beat me home? Yeah, crazy huh?

I went to work on Thursday at 11 am because I just couldn't get there any earlier, and left at 430 because my boss is super nice and told me that I had worked enough for the week. Aunt Sandy and Aunt Connie were coming in that evening to spend a couple of days with us, so I took off on Friday.
We didn't do much while they were here, they said they really just wanted to chill since they had been going non-stop for over 2 weeks traveling. We had a great time with them....

I thought I was bad with taking millions of pictures, but Aunt Connie totally has me beat!  I took all of the pictures they had taken thus far and put them on a CD and DVD for them, and there were almost 1000 already!  I have now dubbed Aunt Connie the Official "Chinese Tourist".....

Trip to Baltimore

Yesterday Cindi and I left to go on a girl's trip to Baltimore for the weekend. Cindi has a new GPS that she named Zoie (that's how she spells it) and although Cindi loves Zoie, she doesn't totally trust her judgement, so she also printed out the mapquest directions to get us to the hotel. As we were driving into DC, Zoie decided that we needed to go through the city because it was the better way, instead of going around. So Cindi kept saying, "I think we should be on 495, not 395", but I was on Zoie's side because she can actually talk and that's cool, so I convinced Cindi that Zoie knew what she was talking about and we should listen to her. Of course now Cindi thinks that Zoie just really wanted me to see DC because we were stuck in DC traffic for almost an hour because of her. But hey, I got to see some cool stuff, (at least it was cool to me) like the top of the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.....

And the top of the Capitol Building....


Then we figured Zoie wanted us to eat dinner with the Bush Family because this is what we saw next....


Ha ha- good ole Zoie.... we finally made it to Baltimore! Today we went to Bulle Rock to watch the LPGA Championship, but no cameras were allowed so I don't have any pictures. It was 102 degrees without the humidity, and I brought sunscreen with an SPF of 55+, but obviously missed a few spots because this is basically what I looked like when we got back to the hotel.... (this is the top of my left arm)

Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. (my other arm and sides of my neck are the same- very attractive!) I had forgotten that after Cindi sprayed me she didn't spray my shoulders, so being the dummy that I am, I rolled up my sleeves because I was hot and wasn't thinking. But anyway, we had a GREAT time- it was really cool to see all the celebrities playing, and we walked 9 holes. After seeing Annika Sorenstam play the ninth hole, we had enough and were so sweaty and tired that we decided to go back to the hotel to relax in the pool. Now we're back in our room and ready to go to bed because we're old. Ha! And tomorrow we'll head home. It has been a great weekend though, I'm not looking forward to going back home to clean house and wash clothes tomorrow!

Robert just busted in the living room with these Ray-Bans from the 80's and thinks that he is stylin' and profilin'. He said he's going to "bring 'em back" and every golfer is going to want to be cool like him. He even posed a few times for me to take these pictures- ha! Now throw in the fact that he is wearing stripes that don't match, and yep... you guessed it... I am married to a geriatric golfer trapped in a 33 year old body..... lucky me! :-) At least I got some belly laughs out of it! (And no, I didn't know he was dressed like this until he got home this afternoon, so unfortunately, he was seen in public)

 

This week....

Well I can finally write about it without totally breaking down, so here goes. Art passed away on Saturday morning at around 830 am. My phone call arrived at 945 and that was the worst feeling knowing what I was going to hear. Anyway, here are my little things about Art that I hope I always remember about him....

1) I got him addicted to Jean-Jacques pastries. He wanted to go there every morning until I finally told him that my waistline couldn't afford it anymore and I was going on a diet. Even after we stopped commuting together, a few mornings when I came in there was a bag with my favorite french pastry in it sitting on my desk. Good morning to me!  And on my birthday, he bought me breakfast. I was supposed to return the favor, but his birthday was last Monday and he was in the hospital, so I never had the chance.

2) One day he made us very late leaving work and I was furious because he was acting like he didn't care. We got in my car and I decided that I wasn't going to speak to him the whole way home. He picked up his cell phone and I figured he was calling his wife because he did it every day, then my phone rang. I snapped at him, "Is that you?" And he ignored me, looking out the window. When I looked at my phone it was him, and I just laughed. He always knew how to get me smiling again. We both pretended like we were crying and hyperventilating how sorry we were and I do believe we could have won an Academy Award for our performances. 

3) When he was in a bad mood one day, I decided he needed to release some stress, and I knew about this very bad (meaning bad words) song from my little sister (but it's kind of a funny song) so I played it for him so he could scream it out the window. He LOVED it! Every time he was in a bad mood he wanted to hear it after that, but he would say, "Sandra would die if she knew I was listening to this!" And I would tease him that I was going to put it on a CD so his wife would find it in his car. And every bad driver we saw would get the name of the title of this song for that day. We would laugh and laugh and laugh- who knew the old guy in Finance would be so hip?

4) There were a lot of panhandlers on the way to work when our building was on Westwood Ave. There is an older couple who we would usually see begging at different corners each day, but they didn't look homeless at all- they always looked like they had just gotten out of the shower because their hair was wet and combed. One day we didn't see them, and I said, "I wonder where our little couple is?" Art replied, "Probably at their beach house in Hawaii."

5) I started calling him Artsy-Fartsy, but later shortened it to Artsy (because I figured he didn't really like the fartsy part). The last day that I saw him alive, he and his wife stopped by the house to get his laptop. I forgot exactly what he said but he liked to be an old grump, so I said, "Oh, Artsy Fartsy!" His wife said, "Oh, I like that! I'm going to have to start calling him that!" And he yelled at me, "You're not supposed to tell people about that, Bangie Wangie!"  The day of his funeral I was talking to his wife and she mentioned that one day we would get together and talk about Artsy-Fartsy. That made me smile. 

6) We ate lunch together with my friend Laura almost every day before he started going to the hospital so much, and every morning I would go and visit him for about 10 minutes in his office to see how he was doing. He always had the most positive attitude. The days after he would get his fluid drained off of his abdomen, he would come into work and say he felt GREAT! It was amazing to me. There was only one day that I ever saw him feeling down about what was going on with his disease.

7) He was always so appreciative of your help. One day he was parked in the farthest lot from the building so I told him to give me his keys and I'd move it right outside the stairwell. You would have thought I gave him a million dollars. Always saying, "You are a really good friend to me. I really appreciate you doing that for me."

There are actually many more things, but I would be here forever writing. I will definitely miss you, Art- you really touched my heart......