This Friday sis and I leave (the airport) at 6:45 am and hopefully begin our journey to Orlando. (And I do mean hopefully. We're flying Delta out there and Continental back - neither airline that I have had a good experience with. I'm already nervous because I haven't confirmed a seat for both of us out of LAX. I'm told 'there are reserved seats. Don't worry about it.' Riiiiiight. I'm gonna worry until we are both on the plane and taking off.)

We've already figured out how to leave from someplace closer than Escondido, which will allow us to sleep in about 15 minutes longer. Of course, having to be at the airport somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 am, that extra 15 minutes may or may not mean anything at that point.

We got a taste of it this morning - a trial run - when we had to drop mom off by 7am. From Escondido. As much as I'm looking forward to this trip, I'm not looking forward to the first few hours. Not until I can settle in on the plane and fall asleep. (Oh, wait. We're on a puddle jumper to LAX first. Guess I won't be sleeping until we get on the plane at LAX.)

But on to the fun part - we have two days at Disney plus unlimited laying around by (or in) the pool while mom's at her conference. Did I mention sleeping in? I plan to do a bit of that too!

It so eloquently describes today. I'm between the rent collection and bill-payment rush of the beginning of the month (not to mention the properties that closed and the SDCAA Expo) and the end of the month payroll and month-end stuff. Days like this I feel like I have time to lift my head up out of the weeds and look around to assess the damage - not to mention clear my desk off a bit.

The lastest from the house is a new addition. Yep, we now have a Wii. I must admit, it's my favorite, though the Xbox is close second because of Rock Band. Gary has finally gotten me to play video games with him now, too!

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Now playing: Paul Simon - Hurricane Eye (live)
via FoxyTunes

Sis bought me a set of golf clubs for my birthday (which isn't for a few months), Gary bought me a golf bag. I actually ventured out tonight and hit balls with sis and Sean. While I'm not terribly athletic naturally, I at least managed to connect with the ball a few times, and it managed to do more than just skip across the ground. I can already tell my arms and hands will be sore in the morning from trying to get the grip and swing down (as much as one can when you have less than part-time instructors.)

A Wii arrived in our household today as well. I can see that there will be debates as to whether Mario Cart or Rock Band will be set up over the weekends. I guess we need to move to a bigger place so that we can have a game room with more than one tv set up. (Maybe the rock band can be an accompaniment to the Wii games.) I forsee much killing of time ahead. Good thing none of us are in school!

In my spare time I've been working through the French version of Rosetta Stone. I've learned quite a bit - especially that my pronunciation sucks. Spanish and English I can handle, but when have yet to be able to pronounce 'rose' and 'bleu' satisfactorily enough for the computer program...well...I skip those words quite a bit during that part.

It would probably help, I suppose, if I worked through it a bit earlier than 10:30 pm. Maybe.

(Anna Thomas)

I did get most of what I set out to do done this weekend. I most definitely slept in, though not as long as I would have expected, it was enough that I was no longer exhausted. I planned out the next two week's worth of meals and went grocery shopping. I think there are a few items I wasn't able to get, but I didn't feel like venturing out to another store after Costco and Fresh 'n' Easy.

Here's what the next few weeks look like (in no special order):
Dinner-
Chicken Milanese with sauteed swiss chard (tonight's dinner)
Chili Cheese Pork Chops with a side salad
Blackened Tuna with squash and steamed kale
Smothered Chicken with a side salad
Chinese Beef and Pea Pods with steamed green beans and cauli-rice
Barbecued Pork Loin sandwiches
Carolina Crock Pork with a side salad
Beefy Crock Stroganoff with steamed broccoli
Pork Chops and Mushrooms steamed green beans
Minestrone Soup with a spinach salad

Breakfast-
Cottage cheese with strawberries or fruit yogurt
Scrambled eggs with cheese and/or bacon pieces
Eggs, spinach and Havarti cheese on 1/2 an English muffin
Cereal (the old standby!)

Lunch-
Lots of salad with ground beef, chicken, tuna, roast beef, or broiled salmon

I'm not above repeating meals, so breakfast and lunch will be repeated once or twice as laziness or desire prevails.

While making dinner, I started the simple syrup for Basil Lemonade from Orangette. It's all ready now, but I think I'll hold off until tomorrow night so that the sugar doesn't keep me up tonight.

If so, that means soon: sleeping in, putting away laundry instead of moving it from place to place, figuring out why I have ants walking in one side of the doorway, around the door jam and into the bathroom, getting a little cleaning done so I can see the top of my desk again...and did I mention sleeping in?

Today wasn't so bad, except I could tell I was falling off my game after the stress of the last few days. I now also have an owner who thinks I don't know the correct angle of horizontal vs. vertical blinds. *sigh*

And to top it all of, somehow people involved in the sale of the property think that I refused to deliver the rent checks back to the property yesterday. Um, hello? No one told me that they needed to be redelivered so that they could be picked up yesterday. In fact, I wasn't even supposed to be in San Diego yesterday. I had to come down because of the administrator password issues with the on-site's computers...and come to find out, they're all getting new computers tomorrow anyway. Bleh.

I think after this weekend I'll be doing much better. Extra sleep, some down time, and some time to put my room and my car back in order will help.

Today went much better than I thought it would. Except for the admin password issue. But I was on the phone with the on-sites before I was out of my pj's this morning to get updates on what rent had been collected, and I had emails out to the attorney with updates by 9am. About noon while I was sitting in the CEO luncheon I attended today (more later), I was so curious as to why I wasn't being bombarded with requests for more information, I actually emailed to see how things were going. There were no further requests. I was shocked. And escrow closed with no further mishaps. Except for the admin password that was written on a post-it note. In my planner. At home. While we were trying to clear our company's things off of the on-sites computers and reset the admin passwords for the new company.

So tomorrow I'll be up early and down on properties to finish up resetting passwords and the like.

Phone calls to WaMu and an owner's insurance company went so well this morning, that I called the Dr's office to follow up on the referral that I had yet to receive. I've been so frustrated with the fact that it is like pulling eye teeth to get in to see the dr. for the problem I am having with my foot. It took me two weeks and about 10 phone calls to see the dr initially. Then I got a referral to a podiatrist. Or so I thought. I've been waiting for a week for the letter that I was supposed to get last week. I called Monday to follow up and left a message. Did not get a phone call back. (Big surprise.) So I called again today and was told that the referral request was just put in on Monday and was still in for approval with the insurance company. I saw the doctor on May 23rd! I unleashed on the person on the phone. It is absolutely ridiculous that I cannot get a phone call back and have to babysit the doctor's office just to see someone. I had already sent a scathing email to our company's insurance rep last night at 11:00 pm (and got a response back moments later!!). The lady on the phone promised to send messages to three people and personally follow up on them tomorrow. I then called our insurance rep. He promised to call the doctor's office and give them hell too. I got a phone message from the doctor's office just after.

I got a call late this afternoon - referral approved, with a name and phone number to make an appointment. Squeaky wheel gets the grease? Honestly, I prefer to just be nice about things, but I will not be walked over. Yes, it was not exceedingly urgent, but that doesn't mean that it isn't still important!

Anyway.

More on the CEO Luncheon: Rob Slee, author of Midas Managers, presented on the new conceptual and aggregation business models and intellectual capital's role in both of those. The traditional business model? So 1990's. The conceptual business model has owners defining their process steps, identifying the steps that are their intellectual capital, and then outsourcing the rest. The aggregation business model has owners managing, not owning, the entire process chain. Most businesses? Traditional business model. Unfortunately, you have to go through conceptual to get to aggregation, and as I learned, you've got about 2 years to make the transition if you're already behind.

The challenge for us as a service company is applying what sounds on the surface like advice solely for manufacturing-type industries. Our intellectual capital as a property management company is most apparently our ways of doing business (how centralized we are, how accounting is handled, etc.). However, in thinking, another part that falls under our intellectual capital is our relationships with our owners. This is something that allows us to be as successful as we are, cannot be outsourced and, considering how much we really rely on word of mouth for referrals, is desperately important to the vitality of our company.

Mom, sis and I meet in a couple of weeks for a weekend-long strategy session. Between this and the Grow or Die seminar, we will have quite a lot of fodder for thought.

I've been through escrow closings before, but nothing like this. Three properties closing tomorrow, and they just started asking me for stuff at the end of last week. Did I mention that one of the on-sites had managed to screw up just about everything she had done in the last month. It's one of those things that causes me to have homicidal thoughts. Especially when all of this mayhem is discovered while I am trying to ready the final rent roll for the title company. I suppose that I shouldn't complain too much now - I started out with 4 people emailing me and asking for the exact same items. At least I was able to narrow down my contact list to just one. This would happen to me during rent collection, too.

After tomorrow, my stress level will drop tremendously and that twitch in my right eyelid should subside somewhat.

Oh my what a busy month may was. And unfortunately a lot of it involved employee issues that made life, erm, interesting? but that can't be discussed here. Oh how I wish I could, though. The sheer laziness and cluelessness of some people just amaze me.

But on to other things.

I'll only be out of town one weekend this month - a change from my 3 weekends in May and two in April. Yes, you will find me at Disneyworld at the end of June. I've been to Epcot, but not Disneyworld. (And Disneyland, I hear, doesn't count.)

Gary's parents will be out the first week of July, so all the parents get to meet each other. And the Fair! It starts soon! Like, in a couple of weeks! (And yes, the San Diego County Fair, aka the Del Mar Fair, deserves every one of those exclamation marks.)

Camping was highly entertaining. The cicadas were molting and leaving little shells behind - mostly bodies with legs attached and a wide split at the back of the head. A little freaky if you ask me. They looked like little aliens. And of course, one grew quite attached to the back of my leg. I had to swat it off not just once, not twice, but five times. That was on Sunday afternoon and right around the time that I decided maybe it was time to go home. Did I mention that it tried to follow me home? Somehow it got stuck in the cup holder in the back seat and make this strange noise that sounded like my dog Kalvin shaking when in his car seat. But neither Kalvin nor his car seat were in the car. So it was a little weird until I figured out what it was. It got a free ride after the car wash courtesy the gust of wind just as I flipped it out of the cup holder.

So that was my weekend. And it ended with a nagging sinus headache. But it was worth it.