July 4, 2010

Happy 4th of July.  We have a three day weekend, which is always a pleasure, to enjoy and so far absolutely beautiful weather to make it perfect (plus the flowers from the garden).  It was hard going back to work after our nice vacation break, but we both managed to slog our way through the week.  Jo was in town all week which helped her get back on top of her workload and we both spent some part of the week either moving offices (me) or getting our office prepared for a move (Jo).  I moved offices because my new group will be located together in a different building.  So first thing Monday morning I had about 2 hours to pack and then spent the afternoon unpacking and settling into my new digs.  It was a bit strange since I've spent my entire Pfizer career all in one building - but one upside my new office is a shorter walk from the parking lot.  Jo is having to move her office since we sold the office building she is currently in - she'll move to this office for about a year and then will finally land up relocating again to the Groton site, with me, once some building renovations are complete to fit everyone in.  The rest of the week for both of us was just catching up on things that happened while we were relaxing in Europe.

For our weekend, we started off with a nice BBQ with friends, Sheri and Bruno (you've got to check out Bruno's Canadian Maple Leaf from raspberries for Canada day - see the blog link down below).  Then headed to Ocean Beach for some putt-putt golf (Bruno won with a stunning 7 over par) and a great fireworks display.  Saturday morning temperatures were perfect so we headed out for a long run and then decided it was time to get the US economy moving a bit.  After a stop at the bank, we hit Panera Bread, Target, Sears, Macy, and Blockbuster with a purchase at each.  So any uptick this week in retail sales and the stock market, you can say we did our part.  Then after a quick stop at the gym, we went out for lunch to a place we first stopped at during our initial visit to decide if we wanted to join Pfizer - Sunset Ribs.  It overlooks Niantic Bay which was a nice backdrop to our repast.

The rest of the day was spent removing excess plant growth - in other words weeds - from the front flower garden.  It is amazing how if you miss a couple of weekends due to a trip how the weeds take over.   Friday we had done the same to our vegetable garden while also removing the last of the fresh peas.  Besides lettuce, which we have been enjoying in salads now for several weeks, there probably won't be another harvest until the tomatoes start coming in over the next few weeks.  Still having problems with getting carrots and beets to grow but everything else is doing better this year and this is the first year we managed enough peas for multiple meals.  We finished the day up with watching the movie Twilight since we figured we should stay current with the latest craze.  Good movie, we have the sequel for tonight. 

Today after our morning run we are spending it goofing off.  No chores allowed.  I'm planning to spend it reading and I'm thinking of re-reading all 6 Harry Potter books.  No particular reason as I have a whole bunch of new books I haven't tackled, but just feeling like I want to re-immerse myself in Hogwarts again especially with the next movie due later this year.  For the rest of the day, we have to return our one movie and once we are out thought we might as well have ice cream at Michael's as a reward (not sure what we are rewarding, just sounds better than we want to eat high calorie desserts that aren't good for us).  To not feel we are complete slugs, we decided to bike to both places - helps justify the extra large ice cream sundae.  Tomorrow we are going to yoga in the morning and then spending the morning on the beach as the temperatures are predicted to soar into the 90's.  Then comes Tuesday and it's back to reality again. 

This mushroom/fungus is growing from a decaying tree stump in the yard and it is just spectacular.  So thought it was worth a blog photo.  It is roughly the size of a hubcap - just to give the photo some perspective.