We locked the dogs up Saturday to keep them out of the way in AJ's old room (now the guest room), and when I checked on them, "someone" had found some of AJ's old homework.  I told him that if he was still in school, I would have had to write a note to his teacher saying that the dog really DID eat his homework!!!  I have no idea where they found it - I thought we had cleaned everything up pretty well...I guess that just shows what a bored dog will do.....

 

Margene came in for the weekend - she missed the Celebration of Life, landing at 8:30 Saturday night, but it was so nice to have her here for a while.  She flew back out on Tuesday.  While she was here, we took advantage of the sunshine (and someone here to watch Alli) and went for a walk on the River Trail.  The trees are starting to change colors.

Here's the slideshow of photos for Ralph's Celebration of Life on Saturday.  It came out pretty well - rain, wind and all.  I had a house full of people laughing, talking, drinking, eating - all the makings of a good party - just what Ralph would have wanted.

 

I went out to feed the koi this week, and noticed something in the rocks, and took a better look.

I shouldn't have looked - it was a huge pile of ants.  (I hate ants.....just sayin'!)  I have no idea why they decided to all come out of their nest, but it didn't make me happy.....AJ dump diatomaceous earth on them.  When I dug them out the next day, they were gone, so hopefully they stay either gone, or back in their nest!

 

And in the middle of everything else, I had vinyl installed in the sewing room/office/catch all room.  We had it scheduled prior to Ralph's death, and had the material delivered already, so kind of had to move along with it.  The original plan was to get rid of Ralph's huge desk (lots of workspace, but no storage - fine when he was working, but not so much when he retired) and his metal file cabinet, replacing them with smaller, more aesthetically pleasing furniture, and giving him more storage at the same time.  Since I no longer need a desk area for him, I just pulled them out completely.  One problem, I hadn't painted behind the desk when I painted (too heavy for me to move) so.....we called in reinforcements - Jeff came up and helped AJ move the furniture out for me.  Then I got to pull the paint out again.

More better....

Here is the room empty - just the ugly green carpet that has been there since we bought the house.

I ended up stacking some of the dog beds as I was trying to make room for all the furniture elsewhere in the house, and Luna liked it....all the dogs  took turns sleeping in the stacked beds.

When they pulled the carpet up, they found a problem - cracks running along the sides of the concrete.  There was also moisture in the concrete - not good!  Before I could panic, the installer told me there was a solution - a moisture barrier that they put on the concrete.  It added to the time to complete the job (it had to dry) and the cost, but....it did let them finish the job!

Otherwise - this is how my flooring would look....no vinyl!

And the moisture barrier goes on hot-pink, and dries red.

And the paint came out one more time - the floorboards had to be dropped down half an inch all the way around - the carpet was taller than the vinyl.  At least painting a half-inch around the room didn't take too long.

And then it was time to put it back together.....

 

And....the ink wasn't dry on the Bank purchase, final 10/1, and Columbia Bank announced they are merging with Umpqua Bank.  The merger date is set about the time of our conversion to Columbia's systems, so we'll do two conversions in a year - assuming I'm still there.  Somehow, working at a $55 billion company isn't what I had on my to-do list...(MBOC was $1.4 billion)

I am constantly amazed at how great my friends are - Meredith spent all of Saturday with me, Cindy drove almost 4 hours to be here yesterday, and will stay as long as needed, Kendra and Kelly delivered a goodie bag of Door Dash gift cards and wine (Daisy, Tote, and Peaches sent chocolate....).  Everyone is calling and texting.  Margene promised to talk to me Saturday until I went to bed so I wasn't alone, but agreed that Meredith's arrival made it okay to hang up.  I haven't really had a lot of time to process everything, and some things will sneak up on me, I know, but knowing that I do have so many people ready to listen/help is amazing and heart warming.  

 Ralph died yesterday.  

It's official - the bank sale is complete.  Today is the first day of "Merchants Bank of Commerce, a division of Columbia Bank".  (Reality check - my world is almost exclusively to be know as "Columbia State Bank" - the "MOBC, a division of" is just for marketing.)  Still no word on what I or my team will be doing for the bank once we switch to their computer systems (mid March 2022).