Life...Keeps...Moving...Forward.

It's a stunningly beautiful day in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Just completed a thorough cleaning of the kitchen - vacuumed all of the drawers, wiped everything down with Clorox. The granite is sparkling clean and the Wolf stove shows no signs of my ongoing spillage abuse.

The husband woke up this morning singing and laughing. As always, he brought me coffee in bed and we relaxed, enjoying our cup of Peets French Roast while talking about our plans for the weekend.

Today we attempt to strip all of the bandages off mom's arms and legs and replace them with gauze. This should help prevent her from pulling huge chunks of skin off again. In the meantime, I've told my dad about my intention to take mom to a hematology specialist up here in Northern California. He agrees it's a good idea. There must be some way to get this awful condition under control. It can't be OK for someone to live like this - bloody, bruised and purple.

Received kudo's from my boss for my work on a contract revision. I'm working with the legal department to get the new verbage approved, and then we launch an aggressive selling campaign. The budget process starts in 3 weeks - which means we'll all be even more swamped for the next 4 months. The best part of this is that my boss is a Stanford MBA, a former financial analyst and a super-bright person. I am going to learn a ton from her about building a logical forecast/budget/expense budget. "I am collecting dividends of knowledge every day." I try to stay focused on that fact, especially when the hours get longer and the work gets tougher. Last year, the marketing manager and I did all of the work ourselves...we didn't have an AVP or Marketing Director. Since I work for a $250M++ division...it should go without saying that last year was Hell.

My blind sister had an extremely successful surgery. Her pathology came back and she is cancer-free. This is incredibly good news. Score One for the Good Guy.

I am scheduled for another massage today - this should abolish the nuggets in my shoulder blades and allow me to turn my head...without feeling like a knife has entered the back of my neck.

We're taking mom to the coast today, to sit in the car and look at the ocean. She can't walk, so I have to be inventive and come up with ideas for an immobile person. The fresh air will do all of us some good.