Earthquake!

A 4.1 - the house shook pretty good, the cat froze, and I ran for the door frame! Luckily no injuries or damage. All the USGS details can be found here.

My Guilty Pleasure

I came home to a Thanksgiving treat in my mailbox from K - Season 2 of Footballers Wives! It's basically Desperate Housewives in typical British style. E loaned me season 1 before she moved to Chicago and I got hooked to the series watching it in China (it's a trainwreck you can't help but watch). Eventually I will probably cave into Ben's request for The Dish so I can get BBC America and watch the newer seasons!

Almost a Year to Date

So Ben, Becky, and I did some furniture browsing up in the Antioch area yesterday. No actual purchases but some good prospects (sofas, dining table, hutch and buffet). Ben and I plan to tackle furniture stores on the central coast this week in order to finalize our decisions and make some purchases. This is one of two remaining steps in our year-long living room remodel (the other is the purchase of the new double hung window which will be done tomorrow). Once the new window and furniture are in, the cozy living room will be complete - a very nice Christmas present to ourselves. Now on to the next project - garage conversion, dining room/kitchen remodel, backyard, addition???

Are we in SF or China?

Today the family took the ferry from Jack London Square over to the Ferry Building in San Francisco to spend the day after Thanksgiving in the Embarcadero and Chinatown. [I did find the ferry to be very clean and quick (30 minute ride) but unfortunately they only leave every 90 minutes. BART trains take longer to reach the city but have the benefit of leaving every few minutes.] In Chinatown, Ben and I got a good laugh when we found the exact same purse and slippers I brought back for Emily and Heather for sale in one of the stores (they were cheaper in China)! It was great to re-experience China for the day with the fam!

The Wait Is Over!

We finally finished sorting through all 2000 pictures from the China trip and have uploaded 272 here. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to post short stories about our daily adventures in the land of 1.3 billion people, but currently I am VERY behind on my research leaving very little time for blogging. Anyways....Enjoy!

Home Again

Ben and I made it back to Paso Robles from our amazing adventure in the Far East. Fall arrived while we were gone (we both can't believe we missed Halloween) leaving a million chores around the house. Ben is busy out in the yard and I am working on the piles of laundry we brought back with us, though I do think I will be outside tomorrow afternoon working in the leaf raking department (I do love fall!). We are also working hard to overcome our destroyed sleep schedules (we can't fall asleep until 6am) and give much needed attention to the kitty. Looks like the 1800 pictures from our trip will have to wait a couple of days to be sorted and posted!