The King of the Garden Gnomes

It's that time of year.  The time when flowers are planted and the perennials begin to bloom.  Our home is no exception.  Somehow between all the ungodly amount of work that I have been doing this week, I managed to get out during a lunch hour and buy flowers.  Over the next several evening I got them planted and have installed our garden gnome as King of the Gnomes.  He stands supreme over his small little garden at the front of our house.

(Zack just had to get in the picture!  Look how stinking big that kid is getting!!)

 (Our king of the garden gnomes reigns supreme over the world of flowers!)

There will be more flowers purchased and planted this weekend.  In particular I will be getting to hanging baskets to hang from the brackets at the front of the house.  Given all the construction happening at the back of the house, we won't be hanging any flowers there as they would likely be killed by construction dust.

At long last it appears that things will quiet down for work tomorrow.  I submitted the final financial forecast this morning that will be reviewed next Monday by the executive vice-president who runs our business unit.  This is the first forecast cycle in which I have totally own the forecast from beginning to end.  Needless to say it will be interesting to walk this file through the meeting on Monday.  The really cool thing out of it all is that I found several key errors in the file.  Why is that cool?  Because it wasn't my file until this past Monday - so I am going to be creating a new financial forecasting process to ensure we don't have these errors in the future.  This will give me quite a visible profile at my employer. 

Though work has calmed down for the week, I did get some unfortunate news that I will NOT be heading to San Francisco next week.  There is a significant personal commitment that must be fulfilled next weekend so I am postponing our trip to San Francisco by at least several weeks.  We won't go until school is out, which in some ways is good as we might be able to stay in the city longer than 3 days.  As long as I have my laptop with me for work it doesn't matter from where I work.  Additionally, going later in June might allow us to have a better chance at good weather in the city.  I always hate going to San Francisco and having to negotiate through the fog!

One last major point from the day is that I spent my lunch hour today at Granite Importers with my kitchen designer.  We selected the granite that will be used for the island and eating area in the kitchen.  It is an absolutely unique piece that looks like a work of art that was created by nature.  I decided to choose this piece of granite and scrap the granite I had picked for the perimeter cabinets.  Instead I will be looking for that over this weekend.  In all likelihood I already know what kind of granite I am going to choose for the perimeter, I just need to select the specific slabs.

Construction on the house continues at it's slow and steady pace.  Today, the day was consumed by the electricians doing the rough-in electrical.  The only thing that has yet to be done before the framing and rough-in inspections is the rough-in plumbing for 2 gas lines - one to the gas cook top and one to my bed room that is going to be used for the new gas fireplace there.  Hopefully that work will be done tomorrow and my general contractor can get the inspectors in to do the inspections early next week.  If that can happen by Monday or Tuesday, then the new door and windows will go in and by the end of the week, dry wall installation will be occurring!  Yay!  On top of that the new cabinets are supposed to arrive on Monday - which means I need to sell the old cabinets and get them out of the garage by then.

And the weekend starts tomorrow!!  This will be a special weekend as I am planning on getting my second tattoo.  This time the tattoo will cover a significant chunk of my left arm.  For those of you who have seen the movie "From Dawn til Dusk" the look that I am going for is the tattoo that George Clooney sported in this movie.  Here's a picture - not a very good one, that shows what George Clooney looked like in this movie.  If you have never seen the movie I highly recommend it.  It's just a plain, good ole vampire movie!  But it has an impressive cast - George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis.

Somehow I am also trying to incorporate a quote from Shakespeare into the tattoo.  Not sure if it can be done but we shall see - I'll let my tattoo artist Puma figure it out.  The quote is from Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 1, line 273 and is said by Marcus Antonius.  Any guesses as to the line?  It is "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".  Why this line...  because it symbolizes to me so much of where I have been and now that I am finally through those stages of hell, I will never return to them.  As such the next time I face a challenge like I have for the last six years, there will be no holding back.  I will face the situation and bring every single ounce of my being to bear upon it.  I will be forever on watch of going down the black hole through which I journeyed for oh so long.

I'll be sure to post an update with any kind of info about getting my tattoo this weekend.  It will be a peach I am sure!  :-)

Have a happy Thursday evening!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.