Sunshine in My Pocket

I cannot get over how happy & joyful I have been since the start of my leave of absence from work.  On various days, I would just randomly text Todd while he’s at work and say, “I’m SO happy!!”  It really has been the best time of my adult life.  I need to figure out how to carry this mindset with me when I return to work. I also need to figure out some coping mechanisms for the stress.  Work has not been my friend the last two years.  It was a perfect storm where I got way more responsibilities dumped on me, and then just massive changes happening every few months, and not being appreciated.  I was really unhappy at work and I let it permeate into the rest of my life.  No more!  I will write a separate post soon about my relationship with work and what I have learned since going on leave.

I’m behind on documenting the stuff we’ve been doing!

On Friday night 8/11 we drove down to the Embarcadero Marina to see the San Diego Symphony orchestra play all the scores from the ET movie while watching the movie.  I haven’t seen the movie in years!  As always, the combination of the San Diego waterfront, sunset, symphony, and movie is amazing.

Before the show, we had a quick dinner at The Kebab Shop.  We usually share a plate.

On Sunday 8/13 morning, Todd went swimming in the ocean with the San Diego Triathlon Club.  Someone got a group photo this time (I downloaded it from Facebook)!  Todd is on the left, right behind the waving hand.  Ocean swimming is no joke, so I’m glad Todd has the Tri Club to swim with!

After he came back, we went to Little Italy for some lunch.

We went to Monello, one of our favorite Italian restaurants in San Diego.  For weekend brunch, they have these croissants with nutella!  There are actually a few fillings you can pick from.

Todd had the fish.

I had the squid ink pasta with octopus.  This is my favorite dish there!

We thought the Little Italy Mercado (farmer’s market) was on Sundays, but it’s on Saturdays, so we missed it.  We walked around and went to Lofty Coffee to share a latte.

It was a fun outing in Little Italy.  We hadn’t been in a long while.  That evening, we took a walk after dinner, on the trail by our house.  The light was just perfect, and it was so picturesque.  Of course, we had to walk quickly so we could go back home and start watching Game of Thrones!

Todd took day off on Monday 8/14, so we went to lunch at Bongiornos.  This is Todd’s favorite casual pizza joint, so he’s always happy & excited to go there.

On Tuesday 8/15, we cooked Lemon-Browned Butter Cod with Hazelnut Pilaf.  One of our favorite fish dishes!

On Wednesday 8/16 I got my haircut and pink hair coloring done.  It took 4.5 hours!  If I were working I would have had to take a half day off for it.  Afterwards I met up with Todd at Punjabi Tandoor nearby for dinner.  This is our favorite Indian food in San Diego.

Afterwards, Todd’s softball team Mean Green Peace Machine (MGPM) played their playoff game against Natty Ice.  My friend Daryl plays on Natty Ice, so I went to game to watch it.  But my loyalty was with MGPM, of course! 

Todd played well.  He had a couple of hits and caught a couple of fly balls for outs in the outfield. 

But unfortunately, they lost to Natty Ice and were eliminated from the playoffs.  One last team cheer!

The team captain, Jared, told Todd afterwards that he nominated Todd for “Most Improved Player” this year.  That’s fantastic!  I’m so proud of Todd, especially since this was his first year playing.  And I loved seeing him bond with his teammates, be a team player, and having fun. 

On Friday 8/18, Todd led his work lunch book club in a discussion of the book “Meddling Kids”.  He got up early to make these chocolate chocolate chip cookies with chocolate cream cheese frosting, so he could bring it to book club!  These were fantastic.  He left two cookies for me and they were gone in no time.

Of couse, Monday 8/21 was the solar eclipse.  We didn’t have total eclipse in San Diego.  I think it was around 55% eclipse.  I went outside with a colander a few minutes before the max 55% eclipse and took some photos and a video during the max eclipse at 10:23 AM.  So fun!

Check out the crescent shaped shadows in the holes!

And I watched the total eclipse on TV as it went across the US.  So cool!

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Best of November 2016

November just sort of flew by without any warning.  I can honestly say it probably wasn’t one of the best months in 2016.  Both because of busyness with work for both of us, but also because of the upheaval and emotions falling out from the 2016 presidential election results.  I was left in deep sadness and it still hasn’t really left me yet.  On top of that, I caught a bad cold and then had some sinus issues due to the cold, so it wasn’t a fun month overall.  Plus we’re having the 3rd re-org at work this calendar year.  Every time there’s a re-org I have to redo the budget.

One good thing I did experience was good sleep in November though.  I think I went to bed on time and slept well overall, so that is a plus. 

November started out inauspiciously when the Cleveland Indians, who were ahead of the Cubs 3 games to 1, had an epic meltdown and lose the World Series.  I know lots of Cubs fans young and old were elated, and I certainly would rather lose to the Cubs than any other team, it was still an epic meltdown after going ahead 3 games to 1.  I couldn’t even watch Game 7 and made Todd watch it in the living room with Noodle.  He said it was an epic game.  I’m just glad the Cavaliers won the NBA championship in June, or else Cleveland would be the sorriest sports city ever.

Todd worked many early mornings and late nights, and one entire Friday night until midnight for the software deployement at his work.  As a result, we ate a lot of takeout dinners.  It was less healthy and I feel like I got into an unhealthy eating habit that still hasn’t escaped me yet.  I probably gained a few pounds. 

We went to see the movie “Doctor Strange” at the Angelika Theater (pre-reserved recliner seats!) with Anne & Gilbert and that was quite fun.  I enjoyed the movie, even though it was pretty ludicrous.  But again, it’s a Marvel movie so it’s not meant to be realistic. 

At work I had to pack up my cube and move out completely, because they started demolition and remodeling of my workspace.  I thought I wasn’t going to have an office at work for four weeks while they remodeled, but my admin found me a desk amongst the engineers.  I’m sitting in a remodeled desk with the engineers until mid-December, when my space is finished being remodeled.  I had been in my cubicle for something like 11 years, so I thought it would be a tough transition to an open floor with open desks.

But it’s actually been just fine!  The open floor plan lets a lot more light in, so I actually sort of like it.  After being threatened with this for almost a year, I am relieved to find out that I don’t hate working in an open desk concept.  My final remodeled space will be identical to the above, except in a different part of the building.  The desk goes up and down electronically with the push of buttons, so I can go from sitting to standing, vice versa.  I had purged a TON of my stuff prior to the demolition, so I’m left with only the things I need, which is nice.

Todd finally received the $2,500 rebate check from the State of CA for buying an electric car.  I got to drive it to work for the first time since we bought it, because Todd was playing keyboards with his chamber music club at work for a work event and needed the bigger Subaru to haul his keyboard.

I drove the electric car, so now I can call myself a true Californian!

I started making my “Making Me Happy This Week” lists again in November, in my “Life Makeover” notebook.  I needed to get myself out of my funk and making the lists makes me happy, and reading it later makes me happy all over again. 

Todd noticed that the Circle K by our house has a whole new wall of fountain sodas and coffees.  We started a new weekend and holidays tradition of going to the Circle K for morning coffee and sodas.  It has been quite chilly in the mornings, so I got to wear my puffer vest for the first time.

I super-love the combination of half medium roast and half hazelnut coffee, with half regular half-and-half and half hazelnut creamer.  I know, it’s a lot of halves, but it’s my perfect coffee & creamer combo.

We went to visit our friends Cat & Mick the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We had a fun time visiting them because I hadn’t seen them in a long while.  They invited Todd and I to their house for Thanksgiving dinner and we were very excited about it.  But I got sick the week of Thanksgiving and was not feeling well, so we ended up not going and just spending our Thanksgiving at home by ourselves.  It sounds kind of sad, but we were not sad.  I’m not big on Thanksgiving traditions so it wasn’t like a big letdown.  We would have liked to spend it with Cat & Mick though!

We ate a lot of comfort foods this month, probably because we needed comforting.  We went to Santouka for the shio ramen.

We went to Ironside Fish & Oyster, where I had the lobster roll.

Afterwards, we went over to Coronado and shared ice cream at Moo Time, or favorite ice cream in San Diego.

Going to Coronado is always fun and makes me really glad to live in San Diego.

We also went to eat at Lourdes, one of our favorite Mexican food in San Diego.  I love their chicken soup there, it’s so good.  And right across the street is this view.  Not bad.  We also got to go to the newly opened Pappalecco in Cardiff and get gelato.

I wore red white and blue on election day.  But we all know how that went.

I saw a beautiful sunrise one morning.

And a stunning sunset one evening while leaving work.

It really was the small beauty and everyday small thankfulness that got me through November.

I bought this t-shirt and wore it while enjoying the Gilmore Girls:  Year In The Life revivial on Netflix.

I liked the growth in Lorelai and Emily, but was disappointed in Rory.  I predicted the ending and the last four words after seeing “Winter”.  It was fun that I was right, but it made Rory’s lack of progress and growth more glaring.

Todd made banana bread and it was really delicious.  He brought most of it to work though, so the two of us wouldn’t eat it all.

AJ & Meera invited us to their house to watch the Ohio State vs Michigan annual rivalry game.  Meera made breakfast and it was delicious.  We brought AJ an early Christmas gift and he loved it.  I love those two people and it was so good to see them.

And of course, it was very joyous that the Buckeyes won in double overtime.

It actually rained a bunch during Thanksgiving week, and it was cold.  This was unsual.  But it felt good to wear warm soft clothes and snuggle under a blanket the entire long weekend, while it was raining outside. 

We also ate at Tofu House, which is another one of our cold weather comfort foods.

Todd made an incredible meatball in marinara sauce in our pressure cooker.  It was so good!

While we have a pressure cooker, we couldn’t resist buying an Instant Pot on Black Friday.  It  was such a good deal.  We figured we could get rid of our slow cooker, since this Instant Pot also functions as a slow cooker, besides being a pressure cooker.

I’ve already made a slow cooker miso tofu ramen soup and it was delicious.

Noodle was a big source of comfort this month.  He gets very snuggly and needy when it finally gets cold here in San Diego.  One morning this week he jumped up on the recliner and plopped himself down in my lap.  This almost never happens to me, so I enjoyed it.

He still loves shoulder-surfing on Todd.

This is a cute photo of Noodle and Todd.

On most mornings I find Noodle sunning himself in this corner by the sliding glass door.  I love it, and so does Noodle.

I usually journal every night in my Hobonichi planner, but I only did so about half the time in November.  I just didn’t want to remember some of those days, or they were just uneventful.  December is usually not my favorite month either, but I’ve decided to make the best of it.  I don’t get to take a bunch of days off in December like most people do, since I work in finance and have to close the books for year-end and finish next year’s budget.  I hope to have a good December though.  Small joys!

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