Things went well and I will update you all more later! It was SO nice to be in San Diego I can’t even tell you!

Smooches to all!
Donna

Wahooooooooo!!!!! Tonight I am packing like a mad woman because tomorrow morning we leave for Comic-Con (Scott’s big comic book show in San Diego, CA!) I realized that we have been attending/exhibiting together for more than 16 years…even before we were married! Yikes! Now we are bringing the boys and they are so excited to meet Snoopy, Spider-Man, Batman and the rest that it’s cute! And they really want to “work” in Daddy’s booth this year! We’ll see how much Daddy enjoys the help! Well…I’d better be off…clothes to sort and things to do!

Can’t wait to breathe the CA air again! Much love to you all!

Donna

That’s it!

Love to all!

Donna

Somehow the miles don’t seem to mean much when you hear the voice of a friend and know that you are loved no matter where you go or how many miles separate you!

I have a friend…a very sweet and dear friend who was (when I first met her) very cautious about making a new friend! And those of you who know me…and even those who don’t…know I wear my heart on my sleeve (heck…half of Tennessee probably knows that by now)! I love making new friends and have always enjoyed meeting new people! As it turns out…this person is one of those who it takes a while to know…like peeling an onion…but once you get in…you are in for life! I am SO grateful for her friendship! The older I get the more I realize that you all are like that for me! Friends for life…close or far…speak a little or a lot…just friends always!

Every time I talk to one of you on the phone, I just get tears in my eyes because I know that I have a friend somewhere in the world at that minute who loves me and is thinking of me! I am SO blessed to have each and every one of you in my life! Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers all the time!

Love, Donna

Hi Ladies!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I’m sorry for that! Things here have been weird and somewhat good at the same time! We’ve gotten some new furniture…leather couches…coffee table and end table. The funny thing is we haven’t really been watching that much TV. We spend most of our nights talking on the screened in porch. It’s really nice out there…and especially so when it rains! We have been having a lot of rain…or at least we think it’s a lot! They seem to think that there is a drought here…they don’t know what that is! When I tell people that we only had 3 inches of rain in a year their eyes nearly pop out!

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July! We spent ours with some families of animation guys Scott knows…it was interesting. They were nice enough and it was a typical Fourth…fried chicken, hot dogs, watermelon, ice cream, fireworks…but it was really hard to enjoy myself…I missed being in CA and the usual things that we would do on the Fourth! The people were nice enough and I was “social” but not overly and I really didn’t want to get too involved! I guess it will be difficult for a while…or at least that’s what some dear friends have told me! The boys and Scott are doing fine, but I think it is more difficult for us…just too emotional!

So we’re slowly getting the house in order…I still have boxes and I’m wondering how much more stuff we could possibly have…I have already given 2 huge boxes to the Goodwill and I’m starting another pile of clothes…just amazing how much junk we have! We’re going through the house and trying to figure out what we want to fix up first…the kitchen is my number one priority (of course) and it really needs help! I have everything there put away and we could use a little more cabinet space, but I love that the screened in porch is right off of the kitchen. We eat out there for every meal. It’s so great to go out there first thing in the morning…especially when we wake up to rain! I love those mornings and wish you could all be there to smell the mornings…it’s also nice to have a glass of wine out there at night!

We are also trying to figure out what we’re going to do with the outside of the house…we had those trees removed and some ugly bushes that hid the house in the front yard! We have a bunch of weeds to pull out and need to reseed the front yard grass…on the upside the other day I pulled out the flag pole that was in front of our house! In fact, the people that owned the house before us must have been very patriotic because they had about 6 flag poles/stands/hangers for the flag! It came in handy on the Fourth…we were able to fly our flag, but it seemed like a little bit of overkill to me!

Comic-Con is next week and we’ll be flying to San Diego on the 24th! I can’t wait to be back in CA and doing something that is “normal” for us! We have been going every year for about 16 years and I can’t imagine missing a year! It will be nice to do something normal with all of the recent changes we’ve had going on!

So as I write this I am sitting in my living room watching CSI (which I can’t stand and never watch) so I can be “social” with my in-laws who have been staying with us for a week! The visit has been nice…seeing family and the boys are happy they are here…but it comes with work too…we have been visiting some sites in Nashville and trying to get things accomplished when we have time…I really need some more time to get stuff done…but I guess time will help that!

I put in an application for the boys to go to preschool in the Fall! I almost cried when I turned it in! I can’t believe they will both be going at the same time! What am I going to do when they are in school! I know, I know I will find things to do and the time will go by really fast…but come on…both of my boys will be going to school at the same time! It seems like I just was pregnant yesterday and now they can do everything on their own and they are so independent! Life moves so fast I just can’t believe it!

A good quote I read recently:

Can you imagine if we all woke up each morning with a smile and thought about how we had twenty-four more brand new hours that stood before us. And imagine that we vowed to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with compassionate eyes!! 

Well…I guess I’d better get going and get to sleep at some point!

My love to you all!

Still missing you all and CA and wondering what the heck we’re doing here!

Donna

Well…I relaized today that I have been getting my social time with all of the contractors that we have had at the house! The furniture delivery people…the heating and ac guy…and today the tree guys! We had four guys come out today to take out some dead trees….they were all so nice! The boys and I watched them take down the trees with a bucket truck and chain saws…I must say I am a mom of boys for a reason…heavy equipment is SO cool…they even had a tree chipper! I am keeping a section of the main part of the tree…there were 66 rings I counted on that tree…the arborist said it was about 130 years old…you just count the rings until you can’t see them clearly anymore and then double it! Pretty cool huh! We were sad to see them go…but one of them had no middle left…just rotting away…the bigger tree was really sad to watch! Don’t get me wrong we have a ton of trees in our yard…but since we had NO trees at our house in Agoura trees are very special to us! I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that slice of tree…but somehow it seemed symbolic…like tearing down our old life and building something new! On that note…we also had them remove some (overly) large shrubs (and I mean small tree size) in the front yard…and we found a baby oak tree growing out there…new life! Pretty cool huh! We’ll be keeping the baby oak (of course) and also this great rosemary bush that smells so wonderful I can’t even begin to describe it! (I’m roasting rosemary chicken in the Fall!) Just some funny notes from today!

I miss everyone so much and I’m wondering if we will ever get settled and into a routine! Seems unlikely at this point…but we’re sure going to try! I really do miss the beach too…we would have been there at least a dozen times by now! And did I mention we found a really great NY pizza place out here…and I mean good pizza…not that “yep it’s NY pizza” but the real thing made by people who are actually here from Brooklyn! On a rather sad note…we have not found a bagel place…this is not the land for bagels my friends! However, I went on the Whole Foods web site and they are supposed to be opening (this year) a 47,000sq ft store in Nashville…YEAH! Something familiar…and yes, I will drive the 25 minutes for Whole Foods! Wahooooooooooo! Now if I could only find an outlet mall! Hee hee!

My love to you all! We are supposed to get another rain storm here on Thursday…I wonder if I can post video…because I would love for you all to hear the thunder and see the lightening…it’s really something cool we didn’t get too much in CA! Smooches, Donna

Well…I still haven’t figured out how to post pictures yet, but I took some tonight of my perfect dining room. All of our kitchen boxes were sitting in our dining room and today I unpacked the last of them! After cleaning up the room adjusting the table and vacuuming, I realized that I had in this house my perfect dining room that I’ve always wanted! Pretty cool huh! Totally unexpected and completely weird! You would think I would have known this whole time, but once it was set up it was just perfect! I really can’t believe it! A perk, an actual perk in this crazy weird life I am living right now!

How are you all doing out there? It’s been pretty quiet on the comments section lately! Hope everyone is doing well! I will post some pics soon! I’m going to kick myself in the butt to get them up here this week!

Love to all!