Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Fridays?

I love Fridays. Even those I have to work on 0 which is every other one. But today, instead of work, I was at the last day of my Oracle Application Server training. It was a good class, and there were lots of interesting people there. I'll miss the unlimited free coffee. What a budget saver! :-)

I found it interesting that most of the people in the class were Oracle employees. Well, to be honest, they were JD Edwards - PeopleSoft - Oracle employees. I guess the JD Edwards and PeopleSoft products are being ported over to the Oracle Application Server. At any rate, they supplied an interesting perspective on life in the public sector. I've been a Fed so long, I've kind of forgotten.

The training did end a little early today. I would normally have gone to the office, but I had put in so many extra hours this week that I didn't claim, that I didn't feel too bad about the extra 45 minutes or so of 'free' time. But actually, I guess I am feeling a little guilty about it. Isn't silly though? I mean, I give those folks so much of my time without compensation. I shouldn't feel bad about this.

It was nice, though, coming home and having a nice long afternoon with Ken and Miss Moo. Ken and I made up a plan for Miss Moo's 'big girl' room. We're going to start the painting tomorrow. Guess that means trips to Home Depot! Some might question the appropriateness of starting such a project given our current financial situation. But we've set a pretty tight budget. Doubt we'll stick with it...but really, the way I paint, we won't be spending the bulk of the budget for a couple of months!

I'm a terribly slow painter. I started Ken's and my bedroom project in October or November 2004. I had all the furniture pulled in from the walls. I wanted the portion of the wall below the chair rail to be a deep purple eg-planty color. The portion above was to be a sandy golden color. The trim and curtains were to be an olive green. I think it sounds weird when describing it to others. But that's the combination of colors on my comforter set, and it's beautiful. At a friend's suggestion, I focused on the wall behind the headboard first. I got the sandy color up and started on the purple down below. I originally wanted to do a faux technique, I just wasn't sure which one. My friend Susan was there to provide help, guidance and moral support. But no matter what I tried, I didn't like it. I decided to sit on it a while until inspiration struck again. Unfortunately for Ken, it never really did strike again. About a year and a half later, he went and finished the rest of the walls. He just went ahead and painted the bottem portion purple - no faux technique. We got the furniture back into place about three weeks ago. The room looks amazingly large now. And I don't have to climb through six pieces of furniture to get to bed. It actually feels STRANGE! :-)

At any rate, given my history, Ken isn't so scared about commiting to spend some money on Miss Moo's room. It will probably be awhile before the big project roles around. We decided we're going to build a playhouse/bed for her. We'll use a new twin bed matress, elevated it about 4 ft off the floor and build a shell around the bottom part that will be set up to look like a house. I think that sounds like a cute little thing to do. Sounds like a big project, actually. I'm leaving the construction tasks up to Ken. We have to have a pretty clear separation of duties or we'll start going rounds about how something should be done. :-)

Seeing as how it's almost 2:00 am, I guess Ken was right to be a little sceptical about me actually getting started tomorrow. But I'm determined! We shall see....I hope to prove him wrong. Hey! It could happen!

Dinner (I cooked it):
Tuna Helper Alfrfedo

Good night, my little digital diary...