Well, things here are getting very busy -- Christmas is right around the corner, and I have just barely gotten my boxes mailed. I finally did that yesterday -- 8 boxes of cookies are now on their way! Now I can concentrate on getting Ron something for Christmas, since I have no idea what to get him.

We are getting a lot of things done around the house these days. Ron has replaced several doors in the back of the house because they were broken or had holes in them (don't ask, you can imagine how they got that way). We hired a guy to come in and work on the yard too --- it was a total mess, simply because we had failed to keep up with the trimming, etc. Well, M. (the yard guy and all around handyman) originally estimated between $500 and $1000 for the yard. I thought that was fine, especially since it included taking away all the crap. The job commenced and he spent several days (with two additional guys) trimming the trees and bushes, raking everything in sight, and clearing the dead stuff out of the cactus patches. Of course, this came to more than $1000 -- and he apologized several times saying that he should have given a better estimate. I believe him since he has worked for people we know and they have never had a problem with him. With a discount for paying cash, it was $1400. Wow. M. took 8000 pounds of yard waste to the junkyard. The yard looks fantastic now!

While M. was looking at the yard, we did ask him to check out the roof since we knew that it had to be re-coated this year. I even went up there on the roof to check things out. M. said that he would do the roof and that Ron could work with his crew to save some money, if he wanted to do that. Ron, being a "cheap bastard" as he said, said he would work alongside the crew, no problem. The plan was to start the roof today, and M. came by yesterday to make one last check of the roof and get supplies. Ron paid directly for the supplies, but M. went with him because M. had arranged an almost $20 per bucket discount on the plastic coating that they use out here since he does so much roofing. After checking things out on the roof yesterday, the job went from a 2 day job, to a 5 day job since M. discovered a leak in the kitchen. Obviously, this is not a happy thing. However, you cannot mess around with a roof, and they are up there working away right now. I hope they will be finished by Friday.

In other news, I was fired this past Friday. I was really pissed off. As I said to my boss when she called to fire me on the phone, at the interview, you didn't ask me a single question at the interview. Not one. And I told them that I had never done accounting and had never been an office manager before. That was the reason that they gave me -- not enough managerial or accounting experience. However, it all worked out! Later that afternoon, I went out to the spice shop (Flavorbank.com). I walked in, and the owner was really happy to see me since I hadn't been in the shop lately and asked how I had been doing. I told her that I had just been fired and she hired me on the spot to work through Christmas. This was very good for my ego. Even though I wasn't looking at the other job as my career, and had been getting to the point where I dreaded going in to work, it is still a very personal thing to get fired, and it was upsetting. I start today at the spice shop, and I hope it will go smoothly.

This past weekend, Ron and I went to a party at one of his co-workers was having. I met everyone that Ron works with and their spouses. Strangely, we had a really good time -- they were a nice bunch of people. We have asked all of them to our party on 27 December, and I hope they come. I did steal several ideas from that party that I am planning on using at my party. I feel slightly behind on my party preparation -- I have to get going on the planning for that one!