5/28/10

1. Picking up two guest passes to the Cooper-Hewitt museum as part of the schwag from Wednesday's volunteering.
2. Lunch with AJ, BB, and SA.
3. Dan picking up the keys from the realtor. Keys!!
4. Succeeding in making my first pivot table ever.
5. Drowning the sorrows of finding out we're moving into an apartment that won't have electricity until next Friday by watching many episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.
6. Some rather sweet stories on Say Yes to the Dress, actually, including one father/daughter set and another one a plus-sized women. Of course, there was also a deliciously spoiled and horrible daddy's little rich girl that really needs to work in a customer service role for even just an hour.

5/27/10

1. Slices of watermelon at lunch.
2. Nothing too difficult coming up in the first long training session I TA'ed, and in fact I learned a few things myself. 
3. Finishing up some tests I'd set up to figure out what's possible after a proposal's start date has past.
4. Dinner at the office to avoid cooking/packing.
5. Buying a bunch of Glee songs off of iTunes.
6. Getting a lot of packing done to said Glee songs. Packing isn't so bad when you're dancing around from one room to another.

5/26/10

1. All the waiting around after waking up early to cheer for kids visiting the office actually turning out to be worth it. I think we scared some of them but mostly they all look really excited.
2. Listening to various Glee and Lady Gaga songs on YouTube throughout the day.
3. Occasional blasts of cool air from inside the museum as we waited on the steps for the kids to arrive.
4. Efficient team meeting.
5. DF staying late and going through his massive SQL query to explain it to me.
6. Reading bits of Harry Potter 5 and 6 to further procrastinate from packing.

5/25/10

1. Avocado slices back in for breakfast, Monday's mushy guac just wasn't the same on the toasted hollowed out bagel combo.
2. Making the decision to skip a training class to attend to a client issue. It was a good decision, though I felt bad about canceling so last minute.
3. Efficient 1:1 with my manager, finding out that my ticket stats are pretty good actually. Also, I can now run the query myself to pull the data!
4. Only getting a few calls during my afternoon shift.
5. Dan having dinner made and ready for me just as I got home.
6. Glee further returning to form with its Lady Gaga/KISS episode. Idina Menzel yayyyy!

5/24/10

1. Lunch with BB (and AJ and MG nearby, though they officially had a different lunch meeting).
2. Nothing too troublesome coming up during the training exercise I TA'ed. I'm always a little worried they'll run into something that'll take serious troubleshooting, but it was fine.
3. Hour-long talk with my manager about career development.
4. Meeting with SL to talk about tool development and learning PHP. Should be a fun side project!
5. Dan getting to a Nassim Nicholas Taleb event at B&N just in time to get us seats near the back.
6. Dan smoothing over the author's awkward reaction to my telling him he was hilariously mean by just saying 'thank you for the talk' and ushering us out of there. I think he was actually a little offended by it.

5/23/10

1. Eating as much red duck curry and watermelon as possible before leaving my parents'.
2. PATH train right there when I got off from NJTransit.
3. Officially getting started with packing by putting away decorative items.
4. Making the meat sauce for dinner and Dan being so pleased he practically licked his plate.
5. Delicious shower, I hadn't realized I got quite so grimy from public transit + packing, but evidently so.
6. Having a Trader Joe's fruit popsicle for dessert.

5/22/10

1. Waking up well-rested at 9, leaving enough time to just laze around for awhile.
2. Getting everything ready for Dan's return with the car right on time.
3. Lunch of red duck curry, exactly what I was going to ask my mom for but she knew anyway.
4. Picking up my trusted brand of sunscreen (Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunblock) at Costco with my mom. Also got a watermelon, mmmmmmm best food ever.
5. Going for a walk with my mom and the dogs where they slowed down enough for me.
6. Interest in the coffee table and side table we're trying to sell from someone in our building. Fingers crossed that he takes it off our hands.

5/21/10

1. PH sending out the email letting us know that our 'volun-teaming' event was going to be something to do with gardens in the Bronx. I'm looking forward to it.
2. RT being willing to go pick up a volunteering t-shirt for me after I forgot and headed out.
3. The inside of Minetta Tavern not being nearly as scarily posh as I thought it would be, given the long time it took to get a reservation and how their windows are all blacked out.
4. Dinner at Minetta Tavern being quite excellent, Dan getting fresh pasta that was a play on pasta carbonara, I think, and I of course got the Black Label burger. The burger was more distinguished by it's almost melty texture rather than its flavor to me. I judged it to be worth the wait but probably wouldn't pay $26 for it again. Also, Dan's Kroenenbourg beer and my hard cider were also both quite good. I also got a lovely hazelnut crepe for dessert.
5. Killing time between the end of dinner and the jazz band by hanging out at B&N for a bit. I love our date nights.
6. Quite enjoying the jazz band The Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout with Leah Siegel. Dan might even look into whether we might be able to book them as a wedding band. Very talented and skilled, all around.

5/20/10

1. Training session ending early.
2. The manager (director?) of the Jefferson Market Public Library, Frank, getting on the phone with me after the first guy I spoke to lectured me about returning books by shoving them underneath the gate. Frank was much nicer about it and told me that the Powers That Be are testing off hours drop boxes in the Soho and Chinatown branches. 
3. Also, he eventually found the books I returned last week and wiped the fines from my record.
4. KM being willing to have our meeting over lunch so that I could then duck out to Hoboken City Hall to get our no parking signs for moving day.
5. Getting in and out of City Hall for this errand in less than 10 minutes. Best and most efficient interaction with a government agency I've ever had, I think.
6. Though I left the office late, I still got to Shake Shack to meet up with MG, AM, JP, and BK while they were still in line.

5/19/10

1. Finally getting around to making a ton of apartment moving related calls all at once: management office, movers, realtor.
2. Scrambled eggs and avocado bagel for breakfast.
3. Getting lunch with AJ.
4. Doing a pretty good job throughout the afternoon of working on one task at a time. It's hard to concentrate and get much done when I'm constantly flitting between one thing and another and waiting for people to get back to me and figuring out what I have to do next and checking email as it comes in, etc.
5. DF showing me his Libre tool in the hopes that I'll had some CSS stylings to pretty it up a bit.
6. Make-your-own pasta night for dinner.

5/18/10

1. Being complimented on my navy leaf-patterned vintage dress and red shoes combo by JB, who is intimidatingly stylish.
2. Getting a fair number of calls during my afternoon shift but being able to deal with them pretty easily.
3. Getting time to talk to AQ about the POEM job opening.
4. Dinner of beef stew with noodles with the beef being much more tender than it was originally on Saturday.
5. Feeling much lighter and relieved once I voiced to Dan that I do not want to become a TAM.
6. Remembering to watch Glee at the normal time! And feeling that the show has gotten back on track a bit after letting itself go for awhile after the Madonna episode. Love you Idina Menzel!

5/17/10

1. Useful deep dive review of common UI errors from PD. I'm glad they're doing this series of quick things we can learn to head off escalations.
2. MF recognizing that my teal sweater was hand-knit.
3. Getting exciting news from SA.
4. Figuring out how to leave a message to confirm our reservation at Minetta Tavern on Friday.
5. Finally getting around to dropping off a few more dresses at the tailor's and getting my eyebrows threaded. Eyebrow grooming is painful but good value for time/money/effort invested since there's no daily upkeep, in my opinion.
6. Leftover chicken meatballs and fresh pasta.

5/16/10

1. Waking up at 9am feeling pretty rested.
2. Getting sewing work done in the morning before needing to leave.
3. Not being the first people to arrive at the social gathering.
4. The kids at the social gathering running around having a great time.
5. Getting back to Newark before dark.
6. Rewatching bits of Sherlock Holmes before Breaking Bad came on.

5/15/10

1. Shopping at Greenmarket and getting pear cider, among other items.
2. Dan coming up with the idea to make chicken meatballs (with fresh pasta from Greenmarket) for dinner.
3. Taking a 3-hour nap to kick off the tiredness I'd felt all week.
4. Finishing up the hemming of the black and white polka dotted dressed much more quickly that I would have expected.
5. Having MG and AM over for dinner. Conversations with lots of laughter.
6. Another great game of Scotland Yard with AM as Mr. X and soundly beating MG, Dan, and myself as detectives. He's wily.

5/14/10

1. Dan getting up early to get the moving estimate from L&L Van Lines while I continued to sleep.
2. BM canceling an afternoon meeting and therefore getting time to get lunch.
3. Finally finishing up the writing of the mid-quarter quality review for ES.
4. Getting most of the way to fixing up my DB access.
5. Reading this post at academic chic about the 'Dress Your Best' week, with this quote: 'I’m becoming more aware of how beautiful we all are in our own ways, and how I can unabashedly admire someone else’s different physical traits, without coveting them or feeling inadequate when comparing them to mine.'
6. Watching Sherlock Holmes and finishing up the hemming of a bright blue summery dress and getting the prep done to start hemming another.

5/13/10

1. Having breakfast with MG and MF randomly.
2. RS and SP both being into the idea of taking this Illustrated Watercolor Journaling class I've been wanting to take for awhile, so I registered!
3. Getting one more lightweight call of ES' to review after his first two on shift sounded difficult.
4. YI being really into the idea of NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences as our team's fun event after the Sales Conference (though it's unlikely to pan out due to cost).
5. Learning to pull metrics from the Data Warehouse with NE. Not as hard as I thought it might be, once I wrapped my mind around setting up the query.
6. Bringing home the expensive authentic Mexican chips--very light and crispy.

5/12/10

1. Deciding to get lunch instead of attending a prio meeting. The first meeting that I'd missed in awhile, but also no real reason I would need to be there.
2. Going to JF's office hours to talk about the areas of development feedback I'd received in my review and getting good advice from him on how to move forward with working on those.
3. RC taking over a UI ticket that the client was agitated about so I could leave right after the team meeting.
4. Making it home in time for the moving quote from University Van Lines. Great guy, but nowhere near the realm of being affordable for us. 
5. Since I got home early, feeling like I had so much time in the evening to just do whatever.
6. Reading Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves. I put it on my library list ages ago after reading this post at Already Pretty. It ended well.

5/11/10

1. Making it to the quarterly business review re-presented for us. I always like going to those sorts of things but don't make it often enough.
2. Getting DF's help on installing SQL Tools.
3. Not being too overwhelmed with extra ticket work even though I had to do 3 hours of phone shift.
4. Going out for drinks and dinner with JF, MF, MG, and DF. Some gossip, some serious conversation.
5. The chicken fingers I randomly wanted turning out to be quite good and filling
6. JF covering the tab for us, which was especially lucky for me because I didn't have much cash on me anyway.

5/10/10

1. Getting to work right after 9, meaning plenty of time for a leisurely (you guessed it) avocado on toasted bagel breakfast and officially starting work at 9:30.
2. Getting started on work and being productive much more easily than usually happens for me on Mondays.
3. Lunch with BB, AJ, and MG discussing the therapeutic qualities of closet clean outs.
4. Getting my Q1 review and rating from my manager, unexpectedly--my highest rating yet!! So nice to feel like the work I did was appreciated and visible.
5. Getting a decent amount of work done on all my open tickets.
6. The latkes from a box mix that I made not sticking to the cast iron pan.

5/9/10

1. Dan being there to tell me that it was in fact still the weekend and not yet Monday when I jerked awake convinced that I'd forgotten to set my alarm and that the weekend had entirely slipped away.
2. Having leftover pad thai and fresh rolls for lunch.
3. Making the decision to pull out some more vintage dresses for the tailor rather than letting them languish as I get to hand hemming all the remaining ones.
4. Dan making a Trader Joe's run on his way back, picking up our staples such as the mini-pearl cherry tomatoes (cheapest grape tomatoes I've found), spinach, Tuscan bread, creamy tomato soup...
5. Dinner of creamy tomato soup and grilled turkey cheddar sandwiches.
6. Clearing out my Hulu queue, including the return of Friday Night Lights (love) and the last episodes of Dollhouse (unexpected twists).

5/8/10

1. Discovering Postcards From Yo Momma. It's been on the Internets for 2 years, how have I missed it?!?? Seriously I chuckled over these for a long, long time.
2. Waking up feeling quite refreshed at 10.
3. Spending most of the day lying down and reading.
4. Dan being around to go pick up my Thai dinner (2nd Thai dinner in a row because the previous night's was really rather unfortunate and did not soothe my craving at all) from a new place in Hoboken that I would definitely order from again.
5. Managing to get 4 washers and dryers at the same time for the massive household linens laundry loads.
6. Dan watching a Doctor Who episode with me, out from Netflix ('The Waters of Mars', it wasn't very good, unfortunately, but I'll still watch David Tennant).

5/7/10

1. Mostly paying attention to the release training with the combo of eating lunch and messing around a little on my phone.
2. Scheduled client call ended up being actually quite quick as she'd resolved the original issue on her own.
3. Getting a response from the Sales Conference planning team that seemed like it might be possible to extend the dates we'd be out there just for personal reasons.
4. MF again with her superior meeting running skills, plus the rest of her pod members being in punchy moods from Friday afternoon and participating well.
5. Getting peer bonuses from AJ and SA, both of whom's judgment I value, for project work that I've done.
6. Finally picking up the last dress of the major batches of vintage clothes I'd dropped off at the tailor's (though now I think I may give up on hand hemming another few myself because they need to be cut and I don't want to ruin them).

5/6/10

1. JS class grades finally getting officially posted so I could submit them to get my tuition back.
2. Feedback meeting with JB indicating that she seems to be really thoughtful of what our team actually needs before diving into the creation of a training.
3. EF being easy going about me being late to our calibration sync and offering to let me have this ticket to write up a full review on.
4. IS being impressed by the amount I'd (over-)prepared for the 1:1.
5. Getting BM and SA's help asking the right questions to help with resolving two tickets I forgot to ask for more context on.
6. Checking my phone just in time to see Dan's text about printing out something for him.

5/5/10

1. Getting a break in the middle of the 'Having Difficult Conversations' class (I thought we might not since it was only 2.5 hours long but I was getting fidgeting and appreciated the break).
2. Hanging out with AJ, BB, and MG while waiting to guide clients coming in to the office for an event.
3. The weekly GDO sync meeting wrapping up early so I could call NA to clear up some questions.
4. Figuring out a way to share my forecasting for pre-fetch ads slider fairly succinctly at the team meeting.
5. Team happy hour/outing getting canceled, freeing up time for me to prep for meetings the next day and...
6. Getting to the library in time to pick up the next batch of books.

5/4/10

1. Light phone shifts.
2. Learning from MF's handling of the podding finalization meeting with the managers for keeping the meeting on track, taking feedback and driving along the decision-making process.
3. Scheduled call with client I didn't really feel up to getting rescheduled.
4. Actually sticking to the blocked off time I set aside to do a calibration exercise.
5. Productive meeting with SA and BM to discuss the internal site structure.
6. Getting caught up in reading Fire so much that I forgot to watch Glee.

5/3/10

1. More avocado in hollowed out toasted bagel utter deliciousness.
2. Yummy fish dish for lunch (black cod? with cooked grapes) and blueberries for dessert (ok and a coconut pecan cookie too).
3. Finally getting my work mojo on after spending some time in the massage chair.
4. Random cellist playing in our building's lobby as we left work. When the elevator doors opened it was a bit like, did our elevator become the magical glass elevator and transport us to a concert hall?
5. When picking up a bunch of stuff at the tailor's, remembering a few items that weren't bundled together with the main batch.
6. Dan coming up with the idea to make nachos with our leftover chips and the already shredded cheese from dinner last Friday night.

5/2/10

1. Lazing around in the morning re-reading my favorite parts of Catching Fire. Gah how will I get through the months and months before the last book comes out?!
2. Finding the red-bellied woodpecker that AJ's friend (bf's sister) AT could identify from the call and looking at the bird through her binoculars. We were taking a walk through Greenwood Cemetery, along with MG.
3. Downing a glass of ice water and ginger ale at the bar after our walk.
4. Deducing that Dan and CP would necessarily be getting off at the Herald Square stop and meeting them there without clear organization by text message.
5. Dan also having a desire for a Reuben sandwich so we could split one. We are not often on the same culinary page like that at all.
6. Wikipedia surfing to ease off the gore stuck in my head after watching District 9.

5/1/10

1. No longer feeling guilty about not going to the gym regularly as my membership is officially over!
2. Strolling through the Union Square Greenmarket with my mom because she was quite interested in checking out the different things available there.
3. Going to the Junior League House Tour with my mom. Quite the range of styles (though not budgets so much, as far as I could tell).
4. Wonderful weather (perfect temperature in the shade) to stroll through Central Park a little bit longer than expected, as I mistook south for west.
5. Getting a dinner of real zaru soba (need to remember when I do it to undercook the noodles a little bit) and katsu-don (breaded pork cutlet) at Mitsuwa's marketplace with my mom.
6. Watching Penelope while waiting for Dan and CP to get back. I loved this film, it was a perfect bubble of cute and sweet and feminist moral.

4/30/10

1. Finally trying out the avocado spread on a hollowed out, toasted bagel thing. AMAZING.
2. Plodding through the afternoon getting real work done and pinging people to talk to them individually about the whole podding thing.
3. Dan buying the groceries needed to make dinner.
4. Leaving work at 5:30 to get to the tailor's and come home for a headstart on dinner.
5. CP's bus from Philly arriving late, making him and RC and Dan late coming back for dinner, so that I could sit around holding up an ice cube to my nose to soothe my inflamed area after I thoughtlessly chopped a jalapeno pepper and then rubbed my nose.
6. Staying up until the wee hours (ok like 1am) with CP and RC and Dan, playing Sporcle. Nerds! 

4/29/10

1. MM & co. reacting really positively to the site I created for the Quality team's materials.
2. Meeting with JC, the O&O manager, being pretty casual and getting good info from him on the planned direction of the O&O services team.
3. Learning how to deal with a particular type of MV ticket from SA and now having a legit reason to get access to that product.
4. Going for a walk with Dan to the Hoboken pier/park area with its amazing views of Manhattan.
5. Finishing up I Do But I Don't:  Walking Down the Aisle without Losing Your Mind and finding it really a thoughtful reflection on getting married and feminism through to the end.
6. Dan not judging me for spending the evening reading instead of cleaning up as I had meant to do.

4/28/10

1. Getting a comment on my wedding blog from the photographer we didn't hire that just shows how classy and awesome they are--if only we lived closer to Atlanta!
2. Lunch with my favorite work clique (BB, MG, and AJ, of course).
3. Coming up with the idea of converting our messy Quality doc into a site to better be able to organize the links and jump around.
4. RT ordering the same drink that I want right before me so I could just say 'I'll have what she's having' instead of saying the drink's name out loud (they named the drink 'Sexy Bitch.' Other names on their cocktail menu included 'Menage a Trois' and 'Pretty Kitty').
5. Finding out from AJ that we both gave the same strong feedback to our manager yesterday, within a couple hours of each other. Hilarious, in that while we'd expressed our opinions to each other on the subjects previously, we didn't actually both plan to bring it up in our separate 1:1s.
6. Generally a good amount of mingling accomplished at the team happy hour, which lasted 4 hours.

4/27/10

1. Getting a shoutout at the All-Hands referencing that presentation I went out to CA for and people being cool about it.
2. Finally getting to have the 'history of GDO' talk with SA that kept getting rescheduled last week.
3. My manager having an extra half hour free to double my 1:1 because I had much to convey to him.
4. Making an effort to chat casually with the higher ups in town for the week.
5. Getting out early from my (last) JavaScript class to get home in time to watch Glee at the normal time.
6. Finishing hemming up a dress from last weekend's haul.