M and I celebrated by going to a tapas restaurant and eating garlic chicken, strip steak, spinach bechamel, and chocolate mousse. We washed it all down with a bottle of Spanish merlot.

Five sections down, one more to go! I will take the remaining section, Grading & Drainage, in December. Once I pass, I'll be licensed... and will get a pay raise! Yahooo!

For the holiday weekend, M and I decided to get a head-start on my birthday celebration and go hiking in Pinnacles National Monument. It's about two hours south of here, in the middle of nowhere.

We headed down there on Friday afternoon, stopping at the factory outlets in Gilroy en route. I purchased about three bags full of new clothes. Even Max Studio, my favorite store, was having an incredible sale. It was very exciting.

I purchased a cabernet colored sweater, a chocolate colored sweater, a chocolate & tan sleeveless top trimmed in suede, and a pair of tan silk pants from Max Studio, a pair of charcoal slacks and a pair of loden casual pants from Anne Taylor, a pair of black yoga pants from Danskin, and a yellow sweatshirt from Geoffrey Beene.

We spent Saturday in the Pinnacles doing a nine mile hike. I was hoping we'd see some of the "rooting pigs" the ranger station mentioned, but we had no such luck. Instead, we saw blue jays, a gopher snake, lots of lizards... and even a tarantula and a coyote! We were pretty excited about the latter two.

Yesterday, on the way back home, we wanted to go wine tasting but had forgotten to print out maps to the local wineries before we left home. Our hotel staff were clueless, too, and didn't offer any help. Instead, we made the last-minute decision to tour the Winchester Mystery House on the way back home. Wow, what a place!

We returned home yesterday afternoon to fog, as usual.

It was nice to get out of town. It's even nicer that I have all day today to relax and putter around the house before having to start the nightmare of work tomorrow.

I'm thinking I may do a closet/dresser purge today. I need to make room for the new clothes. The problem is... I really don't want to get rid of any clothes. Even though I wear some only infrequently, I can't justify getting rid of them. Hmmm. Maybe I can store them somewhere for when I do want to wear them.

I also need to do the dishes.

M is 95% finished with the roof deck. It's amazing! The view is incredible from up there. We can see the ocean, the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, parts of Angel Island, most of Golden Gate Park, some of the Presidio, the entire top portion of Turtle Hill, and the bay. The next order of work is installing the French doors from the deck to the attic... but the door hasn't arrived yet.

Oh, and the plants that we bought several weeks ago for our outside deck are doing surprisingly well. The pomegranate has started leafing out all over and has even already produced some tiny fruits! The grasses are doing well.

I'm a little worried about the marigold, though. It needs to be re-potted soon. When I tried re-potting it a few weeks ago (but found I had to small of a replacement pot so I couldn't finish the job), I noticed that its roots were pot-bound! This means if I let it go too much longer without re-potting it, its health will probably decline. It's already starting to look a little bedraggled.

Well, I'm off to survey the closet situation. Enjoy your Labor Day!