Uplift Desk Assembled

The inexpensive maple table worked great for Jeff's Uplift Desk. It took us an hour or so this afternoon to get it assembled.

I've pulled our Ergotron Monitor Arms out of the storage space, but we're missing the attachment screws for the back of the monitors so I've ordered some. They'll probably arrive before Monday.

This desk should help Jeff work more comfortably and now that he is sorted, I feel like I can go disappear into my quilting studio and play with my new toy.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you have a safe and happy holiday. We don't have any lovely glamour shots this year because we didn't manage to get any decorations up because we were spending our time sifting and cleaning out the basement for the last several weeks and our main floor is such a mess from stuff moving upstairs. So, this year, we won't be doing anything beyond having a nice meal to celebrate.

Tim and his assistant, Tony, spent the last couple of days doing demo and the basement is ready for the next step. Unfortunately, the permits on Tim's other job finally came through so he is going to disappear for the next couple of weeks, so it will be a while yet before we see any progress.

The ceiling was a big mess to demo. It was full of rock wool and cardboard and Tim said was quite a pain to cleanout but we needed the ceiling cleared so we can install LOTS of can lights. I am determined that this space will not feel like a dungeon anymore.

Jeff got a job at Intel (again) and he'll be starting on January 24. He hasn't had a job since 2010, so it will be a bit of an adjustment as we figure out our new daily routines. Ack, I will have to start doing some cooking again. Though, it will definitely be nice to have an income; I predict much more traveling in our future!

Jeff's Last Day at Apple

He didn't think the day would ever get here, but Jeff is finally off at work for his last day! Today will be his last opportunity to get some basketball at lunch. He's already packed up most of his office and loaded the boxes in the POD. This is the end of an era... Also his last opportunity at his Apple discount—I wonder what he'll bring home tonight from the Apple store.

Now we turn our full attention to sifting stuff, selling furniture, and packing!! It's time to focus on getting to our next gig.

Preparing for Midterms

Next week is midterms. (Ugg, we're only halfway!) I lost a lot of momentum when the semester got off to such a slow start, so I basically decided to backtrack. This week I started reading the books over, only this time I'm taking notes while I read. I've realized that I retain material better if I write it down. It's not the notes, it is something about the process of making the notes that helps etch it in my memory. Plus, I have the handy notes when I'm done.

I worked two days this week. Yesterday, I worked on a probate file. I didn't get much done, but I spent a lot of time researching how these types of cases work. It sounds like the languishing probate files will be my project for this internship.

First Day of Internship

I started my new internship today. I got to work on a special project, helping a CPA dig through financial records to try and reconstruct the last several years of a client's financial activity. We were trying to track what money was transferred between accounts and was used to fund annuities. It was really quite fun and I was heaped with praise for my good job! I always enjoy financial puzzles. I won't be disappointed if I get to spend a bunch of hours through the rest of the semester doing tasks like today's.

We're finally getting some rain here in California. I'm loving the weather because it feels like Oregon--which we still miss terribly.

Work Clothing Shopping Challenge

I got the internship. I had given it up, but they called me yesterday afternoon and offered it to me. I expect to be working two days a week now, starting Monday, in a law office.

Unfortunately, I need to buy some work clothes. Ugh, I really hate shopping for clothes, but all my professional clothes from the last time I worked full-time are long gone, and they wouldn't fit now anyway. Since they're not paying me for my efforts, I don't plan to dress to the nines, but these days I am wearing basically jeans and t-shirts, which won't do. So, I decided to spend today visiting my local thrift stores to see if I could find at least a few pieces of clothing that would fit me and were suitable for the office environment.

The stores I planned to visit today were:

1. Goodwill Boutique in Menlo Park
2. Savers in Redwood City
3. Family Tree in San Carlos
4. Thrift Center in San Carlos
5. Perfect Rose in San Carlos

I started with the Goodwill Boutique. I learned when Goodwill tacks Boutique on their name, the prices become astronomical. I walked in and the store was fairly small. I looked at the price on a pair of women's pants and it read $41.99, so I figured this was not the store for me.

Next I went to Savers. That was by far the best shopping experience I had today. They have a large store with all the clothes sorted by style. All the clothing had sizes and prices on the tag. And within size sections, they occasionally had the clothes sorted by color. If I had my act together, I would have gone looking for a coupon; apparently they publish them in the newspaper (which we don't get). At Savers, I was able to buy 16 items for $94.35. The most expensive was a sport coat for $8. If I hadn't had a mission to visit more stores today, I would have stopped after this trip.

Next I went to Family Tree in San Carlos. It was a tiny charity shop with some really beautiful, professional clothing for good prices. If I wore size 10, I would have been set. I did buy one 100% wool Jones New York woman's suit for $12 that was close to my size. I'll be optimistic that my PE class will work... =)

Then I went to Thrift Center. It was a really large store and the clothing was sorted into sections, and then within the sections all of the clothes were sorted by color. The clothes weren't marked with sizes so you have to constantly dig inside looking for labels. The prices weren't as good as Savers, but I learned that on Tuesday mornings, the clothes are all 50% off. It might be worth braving the store on Tuesday mornings. I bought a jacket and 4 blouses for $27; at half that it would have been a great deal.

Finally, I went looking for Perfect Rose. I couldn't find it. I think it may have been replaced by another used clothing store, called English Rose, but I didn't see it until I had practically passed it. Since I was tired, I called it a day...

Overall, I had a successful day. I found enough clothing to last through the semester and I spent only $120. I'll definitely make it a point, when I go shopping again, to visit the Thrift Center on Tuesday morning, otherwise I probably won't shop there much. And I learned the closest shop, Savers, was absolutely the best.

Fall Has Arrived

The cool weather has finally arrived in Redwood City. I am so grateful because I much prefer cool weather to hot.

My paralegal classes at school have finally reached the point where they require work. I don't know why, but the semester got off to a very slow start, but now we are getting regular assignments and homework. I tend to spend at least a couple of hours everyday reading and working on assignments. I've also begun typing up notes of the content in the books because I think it helps me retain the materials.

Early last week I received an email from Thousands of Bolts informing of a batik sale. I resisted the urge to shop for several days, but finally, as the end of the sale approached, it was too much for me to resist. They were selling batiks for less than $5 a yard! I absolutely adore batiks for my quilting projects.

Now I'm definitely done buying fabric this year! While I did buy a couple pieces for projects I've planned over the next year, most of these pieces are for my fabric stash; I just tend to have better luck shopping that way. Often when I try to buy fabrics for a specific project, I am rarely able to find the right color fabric when I need it. And colors tend to display wrong on the computer, so I rarely have much luck buying online when I need a specific fabric. And I had been so good at my stash busting efforts early this year... Oh well, there's always next year.

Speaking of projects, I need to try and convince myself to get back into the sewing room. I started cutting out my brother's quilt, but I have yet to sew any of the pieces. I'd really like to have the quilt top and backing assembled in time to take it up to Oregon in December. I have a machine quilter up there who I've been using for years who is (relatively) inexpensive and fast.

And now that cooler weather has arrived, it would be nice to get the living room drapes made. I tried to get started on that project a few weeks back, but the drapery hardware in the living room was taken down for the repainting and in the process some of the pieces went astray. I keep hoping we'll find the missing pieces, but we may end up having to buy new rods.

I finally had an interview yesterday for that unpaid paralegal internship position I mentioned like three weeks ago. When I got the posting from Cañada College weeks ago, I was led to believe this was a sure-thing job placement, but it turns out it isn't. They have interviewed a number of candidates and have more coming in. It's quite astonishing how much competition there is for an unpaid position. I'm not going to get my hopes up because I've gotten pretty discouraged in my earlier job searching efforts. And now I'm also faced with the ordeal of trying to reverse the internship class they made me sign up for in order to apply for this position. I don't think it's fair that I should have to pay the class fees as well as have a W (withdrawal) grade on my transcript because I embarked on this process.

On the bright side, I have this morning arranged an interview for later this month for a possible internship next semester at an intellection property firm. If I'm offered a position, this process should go more smoothly next semester.

Good Week, So Far

Yesterday was a productive day for me. Despite feeling a bit ill, I managed to do about four hours of housework. Unfortunately, the house is still such a mess you can barely tell... The master bedroom does look much better, though.

I did manage one project yesterday I'm pleased about finishing; the painters had neglected to paint the pegboard wall in the kitchen behind the stove. I don't know how they missed it, but maybe they decided we didn't want it painted because it was pegboard; I don't know. But it was already painted and the paint had large faded areas and it looked terrible. Yesterday, I finally rounded up the tools and the matching kitchen paint and got it painted. It looks much better and now Jeff can hang up some of the kitchen utensils he uses the most.

Here it is all loaded up.

Our hot weather has finally broken, for now. It is blissfully cool today.

Yesterday, Shasta was supposed to start her next dog obedience class. Unfortunately, the Mountain View AKC Club cancelled the class we expected her to take. I guess we'll keep watching and see when they offer the class again.

Today I have spent my morning working on school work. One of my assignments in Legal Research and Writing is to read lots of published materials and find spelling and grammar errors. Since I spend a lot of time reading news and blogs anyway, this assignment is easy. I've already found 4 errors today and I'll probably have quite a few noted by the end of the week. I also wrote up another extra credit paper on the movie "The Rainmaker," another good legal movie. I don't know if I'm learning much, but these classes are pretty enjoyable.

I also spent quite a while coming up with a pleading paper template in Apple's Pages application. (I'm too cheap to go buy a copy of Word when I've already got Pages which seems to work pretty well for everything I've needed to do so far.) It was a bit of a challenge getting the numbers to display down the left side of the page, but I think I finally got it right.

In my time surfing today I found these fun Economic Funnies at Economicrot; here are my favorites:

I finally heard back about the unpaid internship today (after calling and emailing a couple of times). They claimed they've been very busy; too busy to get back to me. So now I'm going in next week to meet them and do testing. I presume they're going to test my spelling and, perhaps, my typing. I guess we'll see.

CSI Binge and Homework

I found CSI on the Netflix Instant Download, but it's only available until the 23rd of September. I used to watch it when we lived in Oregon and stopped watching when we moved. When I found it on Netflix, I couldn't resist catching up on the episodes I missed so, unfortunately, I've done little else in the last couple of days.

Last night I got a list of homework assignments in my Legal Research and Writing class. This is my fifth week of school, and this is the first assignment I have gotten. I spent last evening and today, so far, working on assignments. I expect to finish most of the book assignments by the end of the week. The rest of the assignments are going to be passed out throughout the semester and I'll work on them as I get them.

Yesterday, I applied for an unpaid paralegal internship at an Estate Planning & Elder Law office in Palo Alto. They told me they would get back to me some time next week, so I guess we'll see.

Shasta is getting more familiar with her scooter. She doesn't seem to be scared of the wheel so much and she's wagging as they go along. Jeff has been able to slowly ride it along now. She still isn't running alongside.

Linking In on Linkedin

It's time to get serious about our future; the time keeps on passing and I am not sure what our plan is in a couple of months. Short of spending my time packing, I still don't know whether we're moving into an RV, an apartment, or a house. Sigh.

So, today I'm spending a few hours trying to get LinkedIn. Hopefully my SCA network up in Oregon will assist in finding a job or an internship. I do see jobs on craigslist, but without a contact, I understand I won't even be called. My alternate plan, if we move up there and I don't have a job, will be to complete my Paralegal Certificate that I've about half-finished here in Cupertino. I always enjoyed being a legal secretary way back when I did it, and I look forward to extending the responsibilities I had back then.

We still have no firm decision on the trip. We want to go, but we haven't really come up with a good compromise plan that we're both satisfied with. Jeff suggested we travel during the summer and use our SCA gear. While that's probably a great idea, the thought of actually camping all summer is a little intimidating to me. Okay, while it's not exactly roughing it, we would still be setting up, taking down and dealing with dirt and bugs. Not exactly the plan I had in mind when I agreed to the trip last fall.

I continue to peruse the Portland MLS and have a few options I plan to check out when I visit next, assuming they're still on the market. I have probably set the criteria too high, because I'm really not finding a lot of good options, despite thousands of houses for sale. While I have about 40 houses charted out on a spreadsheet, most of them are either too expensive for their condition or they are in less than ideal locations. I know of 3 I'm likely to see right away when I get there. Other than that, we are waiting for sellers to recognize the world economy has changed. I found a report yesterday which notes Portland has record-high inventory of houses for sale right now; that should work in our favor.

I received a list of sold house listings from my Laurelhurst realtor for East Portland and it was very instructive. There were some really stunning markdowns on the listings that actually closed last month. There was one house we looked at last June that would have been tempting but for the $450K price tag; it actually ended up selling for $319K. It never occurred to me to make an offer so far off their asking price, but I guess that's what you do in this market. The realtor also told me that a lot of sales continue to fail due to inability to get financing.

I guess we just keep working towards finishing projects and packing and keep watching the market. Maybe something good will come up and we can pounce on it.