More NY Photos

With Cathleen and Debbie, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

The conference is over! It went very well and I survived to have dinner tonight with two dear friends I don't see often enough. Ready to call my sweetheart then tumble into the Land of Nod. Home tomorrow!

In New York

View from the Marriott Marquis, New York, NY, Feb 2012, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

Just a quick note and a couple of pix. I'm very glad to be here, though I'm dreading the next two days, they're going to be very busy. On the bright side, it's just two days. It was very cold today and I'm happy to report that I packed appropriate outwear, including one of my felted hats. For the very first time in my decade of work travels, I actually went to the hotel gym this morning. That was great. And I've had one of my most active weekends in quite a while--thank you Fitbit, thank you New York! And thanks to Sara and Chan, I had a lovely dinner with them and the kids tonight. Nothing like breaking bread with family to make one feel able to face the world.

Grand Central Station

Mounted police in Times Square

Happy February

Life's pleasantries continue.

I made bean soup last night and am baking bread today--we were invited up to a friend's house for the Superbowl, which I'm very grateful for, both to see friends and to see the game. I'm not sure the streaming channels will be in operation today.

Last weekend M and I went to see a friend in the chorus of a local production of Chicago. It was fun seeing local theater. The solo numbers were a little static, but the singing was very good, as were the dancing numbers.

I'm working on finishing the laptop cozy. It felted up to a good size, very cozy around the Mac indeed. (The photo is before felting.) I'm trying to decorate it now with some needle felting--I was playing with clouds but M pointed out the base yarn didn't look like a day sky, it's more a night sky color, so now I'm trying moon and stars. I also need to get to Rachel's 50th gift, but I finally admitted to myself that the yarn I got for her at the Sock Summit last July just isn't pleasant to work with. I'm thinking I may need to find new yarn.

The Fitbit is working well to keep me active. I need to make more of an effort to lower my calorie intake if I want to get very far with the weight loss part of my goals, but I definitely feel better. And the dogs are happier--they're getting more time wandering around the field. Roxy nabbed a gopher the other day. She was so very proud of herself. I'm glad she didn't gobble it down like the last one.

One challenge to activity will be work travel. A week from now I'll be in New York for our first show of the year. It should be a really great one--LeVar Burton will be speaking!--but it will be three very long days plus the travel and setup. I have a couple of dinners planned with family and friends, so that will be nice.

On the not-so-bright side, I've been having car troubles. I've taken the Cadillac to a new mechanic, and I may find out tomorrow if it will be either a $200 fix or the cylinder heads. If it turns out to be the latter, he has refused to do the work, and means I'll be shopping for a new car. I admit, not having a reliable ride has been a source of stress for me lately.

Pleasantries

January has continued on its low-key contented note. The weather remains eerily clear and dry, which I know is bad but has made finding motivation to walk the dogs easier.

On Friday, I visited the letterpress studio where I'll be taking a few classes.

I won't start til March, but there's an open house next month where visitors can pull a few Valentine's Day cards, so that will be fun. Nothing better than free beautiful cards! The proprietor seems like a very nice guy. He's a poet and has a very whimsical, cartoon-y sensibility. His studio puts out very arty small books rather the usual business cards and wedding invitations, so I'm curious how he stays in business. Did you know that capital type used to be stored above the others, so that's why it's called upper and lower case type? He also offers classes for typesetting poems, which I feel a little torn about. In principle I like poems, and words generally, to speak for themselves and eschew fancy layouts, but how a poem looks on a page can be artful and help interpretation, so I'm interested in exploring that.

Also on Friday I started feeling the creep of a cold yet again, gah! Very annoying to have my energy sapped...again. I still managed to hie myself down to a work related event in San Jose for most of the day on Saturday while M stayed home to tend the Smokenator. I made it home in time to see the drama that was the 49er-Saints playoff game (sorry, Rob)--we've found a way to stream the game on the laptop hooked up to the TV. It's not very high-def, but very watchable. Thank goodness we didn't discover this earlier in the season.

On Sunday, there was more lolling about, football, and then friend Rachel's 50th birthday party. I felt bad dragging my germs to her party and spent the first hour drenched in sweat despite the chill in the hall they had rented, but I was so glad I went. It was good to be a small part of a friend's well deserved celebration.

I was only intending to stay for an hour or so, but I felt pretty good after having a little food, and dancing and mingling and catching up with friends I don't see enough of helped to energize me. The only downer is I can't find my FitBit and I worry that it popped off during the party somehow.



M had to work today, so I just took it easy, knitted and read, chatted with Felicia a little via Facebook about her arrival in Germany (I'm so happy for her!). I did walk the dogs twice. I haven't been eating much, so I treated myself with a dinner of French fries. In not so pleasant news, M announced that we need to install a new water heater since the one we have now, probably original to the house, has a leak. We'll be shopping for that tomorrow or the next day. But, better to save a little in water and better insulation, and of course a lot of possible damage to the house if something went awry. It's just a little after 6:00 p.m. and I am ready for bed!

Happy MLK Day. I listened to the whole "I Have a Dream" speech broadcast on NPR, and while I'm glad that strides have been made in civil rights, I also wish we didn't have so far to go. Time, time, time...

Happy 2012

It's a new year. A dozen years since the 21st century began, and somehow those numbers seem significant, maybe because it's a little easier to keep track of how quickly time is passing by. I'm feeling a bit more urgency to make the right life decisions, impatience at things I think waste my time, desire for a higher level of happiness. At the Box yesterday, we Pointy Pals were talking New Year's resolutions, and "practicing happiness" was a clear winner. Understanding what makes me happy and embracing even small wonders is another exercise of mind I intend to grasp more fully. It's funny how sometimes I think that perfection is so huge and unattainable and yet can also be achieved simply by putting away the Christmas ornaments for another year or sweeping up the sawdust from the patio or just smiling at a stranger and seeing them smile back, a little surprised. Maybe it's practicing the present for its own sake, and not thinking so much about what was, wasn't, or might be. Unless, of course, one is blogging about the past and future, in which case it's completely unavoidable, ha ha.

Also during the Pointy Pal chat, I realized I still haven't settled on a midlife crisis. What shall I be in my next phase? Right now, letterpress operator is high on the list. I contacted a local printer right then and there, and I may tour the studio as early as tomorrow. Cheesemaker is also in the running--just this afternoon I joined a local artisan cheesemaking group, called the Wheyfinders, another ha ha. Suddenly my dance card is getting full. With activities that involve other people, gah! You know how I hate people. There's a knitting class I want to take, a couple of concerts to make plans for, all that woven around the work travel that's starting up. Oh, and I agreed to be a mentor as part of a startup incubator program! I'm very excited about that. I fell into the total female stereotype of asking myself, "Do they really want me? Am I really qualified?" (Which I quickly corrected to "Do I have the right expertise?") And even when I asked these questions of the program founder, he assured me I did. They wouldn't have asked me otherwise, right?

Midlife crisis suggestions welcome.

It's M's birthday today. He and I have both been feeling irrationally optimistic lately. We've talked about it and aren't sure why, but we're just going to ride it as long as it lasts. Happy new year to us, and to us all!

And happy birthday, Jay!

Scenes from a Vacation

Family Dinner at Sierra Nevada Brewery, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

Happy Nearly New Year! It's been a lovely holiday so far. And there are still a few days of vacation left.

I started off my vacation by taking in a rendition of The Santaland Diaries with a friend from work, which I really enjoyed. Then M and I bore down and prepared our abode for visitors.

M's mom was first, arriving on Tuesday after her drive up from Placentia. We used her visit as motivation to finally dine at Bistro 29, which we enjoyed. We spent a spring-like Wednesday in The City, taking in the Masters of Venice exhibit at the de Young Museum and wandering over to the Conservatory of Flowers. After a little driving tour we had dinner at the Ferry Building. Thursday they spent luncheoning on seafood overlooking Tomales bay while I ran errands and finally created our Christmas card. Costco makes it easy to procrastinate! We had dinner in, watched The Princess Bride, then bid her safe travels Friday morning.

Mom and Don came down Saturday, and we had a nice time preparing for our Christmas Eve meal with Jay, Denise, Felicia, and Erin, an occasion to use the wedding china. M did his first turkey on the rotisserie.

It was a pleasant and quiet Christmas Day. We visited with the Axtells of Redding again and the Reids in their fab new pad. Some friends of theirs were spending the holidays in LA, so a picking party was dispatched to Forestville to relieve them of a surfeit of tangerines. That was a fun activity. Some knitting was accomplished, leftovers consumed, and Don was kind enough to tackle the branches of the encroaching oak tree.

Mom and Don took the dogs while M and I repaired to Chico to meet up with Dad and the sibling clans. It was a mellow family visit, grouping in various formations, mostly around meals. It was good to have both big group dinners and smaller breakfasts with Dad and the brothers. The trip also coincided with end of Felicia's college days at CSU Chico, an event I'm still trying to get my head around. She's...an adult. How did that happen? Unfortunately M contracted a cough that he is still combatting.

On the way home from Chico, we spent a very brief time on the coast collecting the canines and eating well as usual.

This time away from the office has made it quite clear to me that work is interfering substantially with my knitting projects. Not all have been successful, unfortunately. The first laptop cozy felted up laughably small, while the second wasn't much better. Felicia's slippers turned out pretty well, however, and I whipped her up what I hope she agrees is a cute hat from my stash (green chenille with some silver bling). How could she go to Germany in winter without one? Shocking.

In other activities: I finished Emma and really enjoyed it. I'm back to the Master & Commander series for a bit. I've baked bread, made some bean soup, continued on my braising kick. Use of the Fitbit has been marginal (it took its own little technical vacay during the Chico visit), but it continues to remind me to be more active, with moderate success. Today we took a trip to the massive Salvation Army in Lytton Springs then saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Will I make it awake to the ringing in of the new year?

Two hours and twenty-two minute to midnight. What will 2012 hold? The neighbors are already igniting fireworks (I've put a blanket on the sofa to accommodate Roxy's phobia--laps are apparently the only safe port in a gun powder storm for her) and blowing noisemakers to ward off evil spirits. On the way home from picking up the dogs, we heard a Fresh Air interview with Maurice Sendak. It was a very tearful and heartfelt and thoughtful retrospective at the the end of his life. He concluded the conversation with this good advice: "Live your life. Live your life. Live your life."

Not Much of an Update

There's just not a lot going on, but I think that's A Good Thing.

I've been down to a couple of work-related parties in the City the last two weeks. M came with me to one of them during the first week of December and we had a good dinner at Farmer Brown after. He had jambalaya for the first time and I had grits for the first time (with pumpkin and pomegranate seeds--it was quite tasty), though grits are an awful lot like polenta. At the one last week, I had to give a little toast and hand out raffle prizes in front of the group, so I was a bit nervous. But it fit into my goal of speaking more, so I just kept telling myself that they wanted me to do well, they were excited about the gifts so very willing to put up with my babbling, and speaking is something I really want to do for myself so just do it. I think it went fine.

I've been wearing the Fitbit religiously, and that's been helping me be more active. I've gotten to the gym more and have resolved to walk the dogs on weekend mornings too, not just evenings. (I had quite a scare this morning while walking them in the field: Rex came across a neighbor cat that streaked off for home through a gap in the fence and across the road just as a car was coming, with Rex in full chase. Luckily the car saw them and slowed in time, but that really freaked me out. Rex of course was completely confused about why I scolded him.) The Fitbit is helping me eat a little less too, but I find that I'm just not willing to spend the time to enter in all of my food info. I know it's key to getting the full picture of my intake/output, but while the website has a fair amount of nutritional info, it's still a pain to try to figure out some of my meals, particularly dinners I make myself. I did come to the conclusion that if I gave up beer, I could take off weight much more quickly, but I'm not yet willing to do that. Too much good porter out there! I finally got on the scale a few days ago, and even though it was just a couple of pounds, it had moved in the right direction, which is saying something as season's eatings gets underway. And overall, I just feel better being more active.

I'm finishing up a bunch of knitting projects today and hope to be doing a load of felting this afternoon. Since a couple are Christmas gifts, hoping they'll all turn out OK! This was the first time in my knitting career that I had three to four projects all going at once. I like it. We're starting up the lunchtime knitting group in the office again, we'll see how long that lasts. I work with some amazingly good knitters, they're quite inspiring.

One more week in the office and then I'm out til the New Year! I am really looking forward to time at home. We went from having no plans to suddenly entertaining/visiting with all of the parental units after all, which is great. That all kind of falls in the middle of my vacation, so I'll have time to clean and prepare for it all without much stress.