Addendum:
Well, with all the excitement of the almost wedding, I forgot to say that last year, I got a call for Decorative Painting and ended up doing Rod Stewarts house in Beverly Park!  Not bad for a really old broad who retired and figured she was all through with the painting business...I crawled around on my creaky knees and created two different floors...one a diamond pattern on the kitchen floor with a small motif wherever the lines met...really french...and the other entwined acanthus leaves edging the breakfast room floor with fleur de lis at one door and winged lions at the other...super french.
I had to add this because it it a testimony to the fact that it is never over until it is over...I was 77 when I did it...not bad. (I could do it this year too, if I had to and I am 78)

OMG...what a difference 2 years makes

OK...well, it has been a long long time since I have blogged...but here goes...I did move in with Pete in 2011 and we have been living together since then...with me alternately fleeing to my condo in Santa Monica determined to be really single and then returning again to Huntington Beach to be with Pete...anyway...On St Patricks day of 2013..He had been sick for a few days and would not do anything about it...and the same day he got sick..I awoke with a bad pain in my side and I had to take myself alone to the emergency room...when I got back, he was sicker...and sicker...and finally I just got mad and made him call his son...who came and got him right away.  (I could not drive, because I was taking a serious pain killer for the pain in my side)  Sooooo...we got to the hospital and it was serious...he had emergency surgery and was hospitalized for weeks and then in rehab for weeks...When he was in Rehab, he proposed to me and I accepted....It was so sweet...I was pushing him in his wheelchair out doors and he said he thought I should rest and sit on a flower laden wall we were passing and I, of course, said...No, I am okay and returned to the rehab...all efficient...so he proposed to me in the room...he had wanted me to sit on the wall because he thought that would be more romantic.
Anyway...we are not married legally yet...but we did have a nice ceremony attended by his two children and their children and my two children and their children...so everyone was there...and we exchanged vows and he gave me a ring (a slim platinum band) which I have worn ever since...we did a "mock" wedding because Andrew was here from Ohio with his wife, Melissa and their daughter, Maya and I knew it would be a real challenge for him to figure out coming to California again so soon for a wedding...the wedding has to be later, mostly because of needing a prenup because of the children and inheritance and all of that...anyway, now I am mostly in Huntington Beach, sort of married and feeling that a new wave of creativity is building inside of me...we will see what that will bring to my future...It might be another 2 years, or maybe only 2 days...but I am glad that my blog is still sitting here waiting for me patiently.....This is Carole (almost Healy) Free..................I wonder if I should change my name?