Tile. Yay!

Woo hoo! I got my tile today. It looks quite nice.

Now I have no excuse for not painting the kitchen.

So I will do that Monday.

I hope to have the tile up and grouted and sealed a week after that.

That is the last thing. Then the kitchen is done.

Oh wait. I still need a threshold for the back door. But that is in the works.

Thinking of you...

Just a quick post to upload the photo of my card for this month's swap.

Nothing fancy here. Just a nice, clean card in a color scheme I really like.

The dots on the pink paper are from a roller stamp (Stampin' Up).

I inked the sentiment and flower stamp (Stampin' Up) with markers to get all the separate colors.

The centers of the flowers are tiny pink and brown page pebbles.

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That is all. Back to what you were doing.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Kitchen
I got the call yesterday from the tile place. My order is in.
I may try to get by there this morning before work, but it is in totally the opposite direction of where I need to go.
If I don't make it today, tomorrow or Monday will have to do.
I guess this means I cannot put off painting the kitchen any longer. That will happen Monday for sure.
Then the following weekend I hope to get the tile up behind the stove, sink and in the area under the glass cabinets.

Work
We got the information about our new workflow yesterday. It will not change my hours substantially. Which is great. And it won't change my days off. Of course, had it changed them to Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday, I would have been fine with that.
But as long as I get to keep my Sunday and Monday, I can deal with it.
And it won't change my work too much. There were the usual skeptics, but I think it will be fine once we all settle into it.
Other than that, work is work.

Life
I've got a couple things in the works for Sunday with friends. My monthly card group is going to skip our normal get together and head out to the stamp convention in Carson. I haven't been to one of these things, but i have a feeling I should leave my credit cards at home and only bring what I can afford to spend in cash.

I made a card for the swap, but forgot my camera at work last night, so a photo will have to wait.

Then Sunday night, the manfriend and I will be having dinner with some friends at this place.

I have never been there, but I am already checking out the online menu trying to figure out what I want to eat. Wait, I want to eat ALL of it. It sounds great. And my friend tells me they make a killer martini.

It is in Stanton. Which is some vague place in O.C. But that is what Google Maps is for.

Well, I must be off now if I have a prayer of getting from Torrance to the tile place in Hermosa Beach and then to work before noon.

Yeah, I know. Noon. I sound like a slacker. It's just my crazy hours.

Sure, it's a nice rut, but...

The visit to the Pine Wind Garden in Torrance made me realize that I need to get out of my rut.

I tend to do the same routine: work, home, work, store, home, work, food, cleaners, home, work, home... you get the idea.

I gave up my ceramics class at the Palos Verdes Art Center this past session because I wanted to deal with the kitchen and various other things and that three hours on Monday just seemed to tear right into valuable time.

But really, I don't have much to show for it.

OK, one of those Mondays I did grout the kitchen and one of them I was sick as a dog.

But overall, I didn't get as much done as I should have.

So the other night I went from room to room in the house making a list of all the projects and chores I want to tackle.

It soon became a long list. The next step will be to type it up and prioritize it.

Much like chores around the house, I think I need to make a list of the things I can be doing outside the house and get to at least one of those places a month.

Sure, I have been to the various farmers markets. I have been to the beach and driven around the Peninsula. But there are plenty more I haven't. And there are plenty that I saw once years ago and haven't seen again.

So I think it's time to make a list of all the unique local attractions I have yet to seen or want to experience again.

These can be parks, standing local events, galleries, museums... heck, just about anything.

But what is the best way to start?

Maybe I should start in my own city, Torrance, and radiate out from there.

Of course, the best place to start will be each city's Web site.

But I also want input from people who have been there, where ever there is.

Come on, get me out of my rut.

A gem in Torrance

I am a bit ashamed to say that it was not until my uncle and his bride decided to get married that I learned there is a Japanese garden in Torrance.

I have lived in the South Bay for 18-plus years and never knew this.

I really need to get out more. Especially to see all the things in my own back yard.

Anyway...

The wedding was Saturday at the Pine Wind Garden at the Torrance Civic Center. I took a few pictures before the wedding started.

This is by no means the biggest or most elaborate of the Japanese gardens in the L.A. area.

The garden at the Huntington in San Marino is far larger, with a tea house and the red lacquer bridge.

In La Canada-Flintridge, the Descanso Gardens offering has a tea house where you can actually get tea service.

But the small garden here in Torrance was a beautiful place for a small wedding.

The garden is manicured, yet with a natural, rambling feel in its small space.

A series of steps leads down to a small areas in front of a rock waterfall. There are tiered benches around that and space for more chairs. This is where the arbor was set up for the ceremony.

To the side of that area, a stone path winds its way around the small garden passing a fountain on its way to a koi pond.

Even though there were classes, a martial arts event and an arts event taking place in the surrounding rooms and auditoriums, the garden was still a peaceful place.

Since it is November, I think I was lucky to see a lone lily blooming on the pond.

Now that I know it is there, I want to go back in spring to see what flowers might bloom there.

And I really do need to get out of my little rut and get to more of the places the South Bay has to offer.