August 2019 Favorites

One of the things that really helps me to feel blessed and grateful is recapping all the great things that happened during the month.  I also have a paper notebook where I make lists of things that make me happy on a regular basis.  I also keep track of my doings in Google Calendar so that I remember all the stuff I did and with whom.  This blog really helps me remember with photos and words too.  That’s why whenever I think about giving up blogging, I end up always coming back to it.  Because it’s good for my mental health, and good for my soul to remember the good things in my life.

This is a recap of some of my favorite things from August 2019.

I had lunch with my long-time work friend Susan at Piacere Mio.  I also had lunch with my good friend Anne at Urbane Cafe.  I need to be better at taking photos with friends when I have lunch with them.  We had dinner with my long-time friend Sally (since I was 12!) at Ryoma Ramen.  Todd was there too so I did get a photo!

I’ve been walking outside regularly and listening to podcasts while walking.  I walked up the hill to the street where our first house in San Diego was.  Yes, we were totally those people who fell in love with a house in our own neighborhood and moved two streets over!  We moved into that house in Feb 2000, then sold it and moved into our current house in Oct 2001, so we were only in that house for less than two years.  However, I never realized how beautiful and huge our neighbors’ houses were up there.  I walked by this one with a 4-car garage and  ocean view. 

I just never even realized that my neighbors had 4-car garages, for some reason.  It seems really extreme… but we don’t have basements in SoCal and people are always hurting for more storage space.  Although I’d say just own less stuff, ha ha.

One of the highlights of August was flying to Ohio to see Todd’s family and for Todd’s 30th high school reunion.  And his sister Amy’s good timing of giving birth to her 2nd son while we were there!

We flew there on Southwest and somehow on both legs of the flight, we got exit rows.  Todd had some really awesome legroom! 

Meeting Pierce for the first time!  (Older one is his big bro Quinn.)

Having lunch with one of Todd’s oldest and goodest friends from high school, Joe, and his brother George.

Turned in our first electric car, a Kia Soul EV. 

And then buying a used 2017 BMW i3 EV.

Going to the Padres vs Colorado Rockies game on 8/10.  And eating Carnitas Snack Shack food inside the stadium.  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect.  Sunny, breezy, and not hot.  So San Diego.

Celebrating my dad’s 75th birthday with lots of his friends, and getting to see my sister Joyce and my nephew Andrew again.

Todd’s last softball game with his team Purple Reign on 8/14.  They lost so they didn’t get to go on in the playoffs.

We've had a fun summer with Todd's company softball team Purple Reign! Because I don't work now, I was able to attend about five games this year. It was so fun to watch them improve, and watch Todd become a reliable hitter, outfielder, first baseman, and first and third base coach. I really admire Todd's ability to participate in things he loves, have fun, and make friends. He's a good example to me of someone who enjoys life to the max and MAKES fun happen for himself. So inspiring!

We found a new-to-us Persian supermarket and restaurant – North Park Produce in Poway.  The food there was SO good!  Here’s Todd’s chicken shawarma with hummus.

We watched two movies at the theater:  The Farewell and Where’d You Go Bernadette.  I had listened to the Fresh Air podcast episode where Terry Gross interviewed the filmmaker Lulu Wang about The Farewell, based on her family’s real life lie.  I was intrigued and made sure to see the movie.  I had read the book “Where’d You Go Bernadette?”  by Maria Semple several years ago and really enjoyed its quirkiness, so I enjoyed the movie adaptation as well. 

One dish we made twice this month that we really enjoyed is White Balsamic and Tarragon Chicken.  We made it for Todd’s family while visiting Ohio, and we made it another time at home.  Yummy!

Here it is with the olive relish, along with an Aloo Gobi side dish.

The very end of August (8/31), our favorite time of the year started.  Its college football season!  We celebrated by watching ESPN College Gameday, watching Ohio State beat Florida Atlantic, and eating homemade nachos.

Some Noodle cuteness happened this month as well.  Always makes me happy to see his antics!

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I’m Back

I haven’t blogged for about four months due to technical issues with Open Live Writer’s interface with Blogger.  I HATE the Blogger web interface, so blogging was no longer fun for me and I gave up.  I kept checking Github threads to see if someone was kind enough to volunteer his/her time to rewrite Open Live Writer to fix the issues, and lo and behold last Friday when I checked the thread, someone named Nick Vella did!  So now I’m back to blogging, except I’m still considering migrating my blog to self-hosted Wordpress so I never have these issues again.  But that would require research and lots of work, and learning the technical details on my part. 

Todd and I are doing really well, and I am personally doing well! 

Here are some bigger things that happened while the blog was dormant.

• I started reading and watching videos about skincare and have been really interested in it for the last three months.  My 49-year old face looks more glowing and wrinkle-free than before! 

• We watched Game of Thrones’ final season, Season 8.  Sigh.  We loved that show.
• We discovered a couple of new-to-us Chinese restaurants:  Szechuan Chef and Shan Xi Magic Kitchen.
• We turned in the Kia Soul electric car (lease was up), and we purchased a used 2017 BMW i3 electric car for Todd.

• Todd played an entire season of intramural softball at Illumina.  They lost in the first round of playoffs.  I went to 4-5 games.

• Todd went to Trailhead DX in San Francisco.
• We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!

• We took a week off in July and staycationed here in SoCal.  We went on a bay cruise.  Spent a day up in San Clemente.  Went to Coronado.  Learned to make Chinese dumplings at home.  Had breakfast out.  Went wine tasting.  We did most of the activities with a Groupon and it cost less than 50% of the regular price!  Woo!

• We went to Nashville, TN for Con of Thrones!

• I went to jury duty.
• I drove to the US-Mexico border for my Global Entry interview.  I’m now a Global Entry cardholder, so I can go through the expedited customs line when I return from a foreign country.  And Global Entry includes TSA Precheck, which I enjoyed immensely when we flew to Ohio.  Two minutes through security!
• We flew to Ohio to spend a few days with Todd’s family.  Todd’s sister Amy had her second baby while we were there!  AND Todd attended his 30th high school reunion!  The funniest thing was when a guy he knew in high school said in front of everyone, “Now what guy our age still has a full head of hair like that??!”  Apparent Todd does.

• My sister Joyce and I put together a 75th birthday party for our dad in LA.  She and my nephew Andrew flew into LA and we drove up.  We had a Chinese banquet at Newport Seafood and invited several of my dad’s friends.  We had two big tables of people to celebrate my dad.  It was grand.

So now we’re caught up!

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Way Back in August

In real life I’ve been back at work for a little over a week and it’s pretty taxing on me.  So I’m just gonna go back to August and document some fun things that I haven’t had a chance to blog about. 

First, a word from Noodle.  “I love to lay on paper.  It’s my favorite.  I do this every day while my catmom works out.”

I ate a lot of good food while on leave.  Some cooked at home.  Some dining out.  If I hadn’t been working out every day, I would have gained a lot of weight.

On Sunday 8/20 we went to Lolita’s Mexican for lunch.  If you don’t get there by noon you will have long lines to order and almost no seats.  That’s what happened to us.  But it was worth it!

On Saturday 8/26 we checked out Westroot Tavern for lunch.  It was a new-to-us place.  It was pretty good but expensive for what it was.  Fancy bar food!  We got the roasted Brussels sprouts with pork belly and it was really good but really oily.

I got ahi tuna salad and it was just meh.  Plus it was tiny.

Todd got fish & chips and it was ok.  He said it wasn’t salty enough.  So overall we won’t be back on a regular basis.

On Sunday 8/27 Todd went swimming in Del Mar with the SD Tri Club.  He got to wear his new wetsuit for the first time!  He had a wetsuit that he wore for years, but it finally broke down.

After that we went to lunch at Kappa Sushi, one of our favorite Japanese places around here.

We had an early dinner at Pho Hoang Express.  Then we went to Bernardo Winery for the Ira B Liss big band concert.  We do this every year and it’s always such fun!

After we got back home, it was time for the Game of Thrones season 7 finale!  I really enjoyed season 7.  Now we are watching season 6 again every Sunday night so we could go back and listen to the recap podcasts.  Long wait till season 8!

Todd took Monday 8/28 off so we went to lunch at Liberty Public Market.  We had sausage sandwiches from Mastiff.

After that we shared two small scoops of ice cream from Scoops by Moo Time.  One was Banana Nutella and the other Chocolate Pomegranate. 

And now, a word from Noodle.  “I loved to sleep in this cat bed by the window during my catmom’s leave from work.  I just wanted to be close to her, next to the recliner.”

Thursday 8/31 was the kickoff game for the Ohio State Buckeyes football season!  We invited our friends Anne & Gilbert over for dinner and the game.  Todd made homemade carne asada, which set off the smoke alarm when he was cooking it.  But man, was it good.  Anne & Gilbert brought jalapeno corn bread and it was divine.

Group selfie during the game!

Todd made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert.  So good!

The Buckeyes beat Indiana 49-21, pulling away in the second half.  It was a great way to kick off the college football season!  The first college football Saturday was 9/2, so of course Todd was prepared for it!

I haven’t been sleeping as well since going back to work.  I’ve been still working out every day though, so at least I’ve kept that going.  I’ll be back in a couple of days with more September recaps.  Talk to you soon!

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