Another Trip to the Dentist

This involved prepping for the crown. I had my root canal already and it was traumatic but as good as it could be I suppose. I took over a month to heal from that. Did you know that there is a ligament surrounding each tooth and these can get very sore from all that dental work. This was apparently what was causing me pain. See picture for some of the things done in a root canal. I felt you really needed to see that....just to share my pain with you. Yes, there is blood if you're a bleeder. I am.

Today was the prepping for the crown over that particular tooth. Since it was so decayed, had an old filling, etc, they tear apart most of the tooth to get in there with that lovely file/drill thing so there's not much left of the tooth when they are done. This means they have to crown it. A crown is a new porcelain or gold tooth that sits on top of your old tooth. Your old tooth is prepped to receive the crown. It's crowned like in checkers and fits like a puzzle piece or glove. I've happily provided you a picture of that too. Now this trauma and drama in this picture didn't happen to me where they ripped apart part of the gum, instead they put some sort of strings between the tooth and the gum, then pushed it in there to make a space so they could drill and cement. It was lovely but I suppose, all in all better than this picture.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go have 4 advil and chase it down with a pint of vodka.

Rebuilding Together

Webcor and Rebuilding Together work every year on a big project to renovate a facility in need. This year was Angel's Camp in San Pedro. Here's some shots of us helping out today.

Kitchen Lessons Learned - Granite vs Marble

We had a beautiful piece of countertop picked out.

We had a color scheme and a plan. We had wrapped our mind around the kitchen cabinets, stain and flooring all in a certain style based on this "granite". We went over to Arizona Tile and received quite an education from Tiffanie. She was wonderful. It turns out that this is NOT granite but marble. You can put marble as your kitchen countertop but it is not recommended as it is softer than granite and quite porous. She saw we were in love and was kind enough to give us a sample and some porous sealer with instructions to test it out. I sealed it twice as instructed and waited 72 hours. Then we did the lemon juice and red wine test. These are not kind to porous stone apparently. I put on both for 20 minutes, sponged and rubbed off. Both left very visible dark marks. Hmmmmmm lesson learned. I then said, well, we don't really cook that way, we're pretty neat, let's try for 3 minutes. Same result.

We retired to the living room with visions of our kitchen falling down all around us. We would have to rethink the entire color scheme. A couple hours later Dena wandered into the kitchen again and happened to glance at the marble. The wine glass ring and lemon juice mark were gone. What the?! I have no idea why but they were gone. We've decided against this stone anyway and will stick with granite. We've decided to go a little more generic and thus resaleable in case someday we move. Regardless, Arizona tile will be where we buy the granite because they were so helpful. And SMG Stone will be our fabricators because I have heard over and over how good they are.

Is It Really All About Me?

My neighbour bought his friends' kid (who is over at his house all the time) a new truck to run up and down the driveway beside our living room and bedroom windows. The old truck was a 12 pack sized dump truck that made a lovely clicking noise when he pushed it up and down the driveway thousand's of times, sometimes until 10 o'clock at night. What parent keeps their 4 year old up until 10 and 11 o'clock on a regular basis?

The new truck is one of those big, electric ride 'em type jeeps. It makes an absolutely horrible noise on the driveway not unlike a jet plane taking off. Sometimes I wonder if he buys this stuff for the kid just to drive us insane. How in the world does he stand the noise? Well, they play loud rock music in the garage with the door open that we can hear thumpa, thumpa, thumpa.

Is it wrong to approach life with the attitude of you just can't wait until it's all over?

A Day With My Mom

Get up early, get over to the Garden Store and buy over $100 worth of soil, flowers and veggies. Come home, plant for 2 or 3 hours. Quickly make some sandwiches for lunch, jump in the car and eat them on the way to the Psychic. Have a couple card/tarot readings then drive over to Costco, pick up all our pictures, drive over to a different garden store. Ooooh and aaaahhh over the gorgeous flowers (this store is much higher end than the first), buy more pots to plant and separate more plants. Drive home. Are you tired yet?

Quickly garden a little more, exchange gifts, change, jump in car and drive to The Grove. Have a wonderful supper, do some shopping and go see a movie. Walk around the Grove some more and drive home. I passed out into bed at 11:30 pm completely unable to keep my eyes open.

This was my mom's birthday day. There wasn't even time for cake. She is truly an amazing person with triple my energy. I'm not sure where she's getting it from.

Pictures of The Vacation

Big Sur - California's Coastline

Canada Goose Vacations at Monterey Bay, CA

Million Dollar Day

Today Dena, my Mom, my Aunt Elaine and I left Cambria, California and drove north up Highway 1. This coast road is considered by many to be the most spectacular coastline in the world and it did not disappoint. First stop was the Elephant Seals near San Simeon. We marveled at their size and smell and took lots of pictures.

We drove by the Piedras Blanca Lighthouse and continued north stopping a various overlooks to revel in the breathtaking views up and down the coast. Crashing waves, steep cliffs, large rock outcroppings and a full palette of spring wild flowers greeted us at every turn. We stopped for a quick waterfall hike and some more pictures. Mom fed the blue jays and I was surrounded by 5 little gophers eating Elaine's rye crackers right out of my hands.

We stopped at Nepenthe for a well deserved lunch break and admired more of the view and soaked up some sun. We then oohed and ahhed further north past Big Sur itself and then up to Point Lobos State park. This is where we saw Harbor Seals, an otter and whale spouts. Like I said, a million dollar day. We are now in Monterey Bay and will stay the night here.