8/30/10

1. Got a response to the posting about Dan's old desk...fingers crossed it finally gets sold.
2. Really helpful lunch with JB about how to be a better mentor.
3. Leaving work early (brought laptop home since I needed to work further anyway).
4. Enough time in the evening to waste a bit but still get sufficient work on the presentation done.
5. Getting Dan's help on figuring out how to identify which rows of data should be included and which shouldn't.
6. Dan accepting my apology for being randomly bitchy to him about not being fast enough in figuring out the above.

8/29/10

1. Finishing reading The Amber Spyglass in the morning.
2. Getting enough energy together to do a relatively thorough cleaning of the apartment, including the bathroom and pulling out the crappy vacuum.
3. Reading Mockingjay all in one go. Not bad for wrapping up a trilogy, not as wonderful as The Amber Spyglass for the His Dark Materials trilogy, but not bad.
4. Going for the second 25-minute run (start of week 7) and having the makeup podcast from Yes & Yes to listen to when I'd forgotten the full-length C25K podcast.
5. Starting watching the animated Clone Wars series out from Netflix.
6. Staying awake long enough to get through Mad Men (not because the episode was boring, though it was a bit weird, but because from resisting a nap in the afternoon, I was rather tired).

8/28/10

1. Both of Dan's younger sisters accompanying me to the mall to get my makeup done before the fauxgagement shoot with AL, and both of them being very sweetly excited about it.
2. Hilarious lady at the Shiseido counter in Nordstrom agreeing to do my makeup after I got turned away from a few other counters, and doing a great job with the eyeshadow!
3. Finding teal colored balloons along with red and yellow for the fauxgagement shoot.
4. Having a wonderful time wandering Monmouth Battlefield State Park for the shoot.
5. Not getting poison ivy after fighting our way through the tall grasses out from the train tracks to the road.
6. Delicious forbidden fruit of apples and a peach.

8/27/10

1. Client didn't pick up for scheduled call, so got a few more minutes to get work done before heading out for dentist appointment.
2. Dentist adding Netflix for entertainment while you're getting your teeth cleaned. Started in on Pushing Daisies season 2. I forgot how bright and colorful and cute it was.
3. Redeeming the free eyebrow threading session after 10 visits.
4. Completing the first 25 minute long run of C25K.
5. Finding some random children's toy bins that we might be able to use for storage in our apartment, once they're cleaned up a bit.
6. Made some more sliced tomatoes on toasted garlic bread, plus scrambled eggs with the last of the CSA cherry tomatoes.

8/26/10

1. Getting to watch BB practice her reporting demo--such cool features!--and giving feedback.
2. Getting a significant enough done on a set of slides so I didn't feel embarrassed when showing up to a meeting to review them.
3. Finding out that MG planned to be done with Mockingjay by tomorrow so I could have it for the weekend.
4. Finding a really nice blue western shirt at The Gap for Dan to wear.
5. Dinner of sliced CSA tomato on toasted bread rubbed with garlic, shaved parmesan on top and rosemary-garlic infused olive oil drizzled over everything (inspired by this Catalan Tomato bread recipe).
6. Playing dress-up and making lists of potential shoes, accessories, and props for the engagement shoots.

8/25/10

1. Getting an email from the band we're checking out that they are in fact available on our wedding date. I was psyching myself up for a freakout if they were already booked since Dan has a pretty clear vision of what he wants and hasn't been able to find others that fit it so far. 
2. Getting to the office in time to grab breakfast even though I overslept the snooze button several times  and I got rather damp from the pouring rain.
3. Catching the end of an office hours session with some forecasting engineers. They were really good at explaining the technical stuff, actually, and describing what the larger vision and strategy is. I need to attend more things like this.
4. Going for another C25K run and not feeling strained at all during the 10 minutes stretches.
5. Dan writing up his first post for das wedding blog!
6. Dinner from last night being just as good tonight.

8/24/10

1. Finding Dan Savage's The Commitment to be a good morning read.
2. Seeing items in a podding update presentation at the All Hands that I might be able to poach for my own preso.
3. Massive blogging catch up :)
4. Not finding the data pulling task I was putting off all day to be as painful as I thought it would be.
5. Checking out the Hoboken downtown farmers' market for the first time and discovering that they sell watermelons there!
6. Really enjoying the dinner I threw together of caramelized onions (makes everything better), CSA green pepper, CSA cherry tomatoes, farmers' market basil, and goat cheese on linguine.

8/23/10

1. Borrowing RC's large umbrella that he'd left with Dan.
2. Not getting full on blisters from the back edge of my yellow rain boots rubbing against my calves because they're still not quite wide enough. Need to remember that I need to wear leggings with these rain boots.
3. Spending some more time in the afternoon working on the dashboard, successfully fixing an issue I'd had when the query returned 0 results.
4. Ending up being right about how the forecasting system worked, though the client got frustrated and gave up on me.
5. Sucking it up and going for a run (week 6 of C25K, raining too heavily both yesterday evening and this morning) and being right that I would feel better afterwards.
6. Dinner of actual fried green tomatoes.

8/22/10

1. Waking up to a Southern breakfast made by Dan: biscuits, gravy, grits with maple syrup.
2. Lazing around the morning watching a Monk marathon.
3. Well, pretty much in general not doing anything all day.
4. Taking a nap in the afternoon in the midst of all my not doing of anything.
5. Making peach jam with the new peaches that came in the last CSA delivery, plus those that had been processed a week ago.
6. Laughing out loud at the scene of Peggy riding around in circles on a motorcycle in tonight's episode of Mad Men.

8/21/10

1. Finishing a quick cleanup of the apartment just in time.
2. My mom and sister bringing up curry and a whole 'nother watermelon for me.
3. Settling on the strapless J.Crew dress we ordered as my sister's bridesmaid dress. Color isn't quite perfect, a little too green, but closer than anything else we saw, and the style is simple and elegant.
4. Getting Korean food for lunch at the place I'd gone to with RL (for my future reference, it's on 32nd St. and called Seoul Garden).
5. Going to see Billy Elliot with my mom and sister and all of us quite enjoying it. It's the first Broadway show I've been to in quite some time.
6. Watching Memento in the evening with Dan.

8/20/10

1. Tactical sync meeting only going for half an hour, and being joined by DK. 
2. Feeling much better about the support setup now.
3. Heading out from work at 5:30.
4. Getting a haircut.
5. Clothes shopping with Dan and Uniqlo and discovering jeans that are his proper size (though the hipster fit is too tight).
6. Getting pizza for dinner at Arturo's, a random choice for us to stop in but evidently decently reviewed online.

8/19/10

1. Getting up early to go running with Dan in the morning and completing the first 20 minute run with no walking intervals in C25k!
2. Illuminating career conversations demonstration by RL.
3. IS being understanding about my disorganized and slight emotional outburst in our skip-level.
4. Getting going on putting stuff together for the podding OKR, finally.
5. Catching up with SS over dinner. We're pretty similar, actually.
6. Having a good time at BM's going away happy hour. Hung out with SA and LS mostly, but also hilarious time of BM demonstrating the Shake Weight. He also walked me out when I left and said some very sweet things about what I've worked with him on.

8/18/10

1. Talking through process stuff for the metrics team with DF.
2. Not being late to the sync meeting (I'd had a phone shift right before).
3. JC attending the sync meeting and AA speaking up for me that they understand I have other commitments and are happy with my work for them so far.
4. People being patient with me trying to clean up items in the sync meeting and with the slow response times this week.
5. Nevertheless ending the sync meeting early!
6. Dan being patient with me whining and despairing about the SA situation for a long time.

8/17/10

1. Meetings with managers to express my concerns about the support structure that's been set up from SA's departure.
2. Getting help with my manager on how to push a quarter-long project I've been stalling on.
3. Learning that a low survey score I got from a client was due to other frustrations with the product, rather than the service provided.
4. Picking up more than I've done in the past in a walkthrough of the upgraded product.
5. Getting help from SL figuring out some bugs with the dashboard.
6. C25K run with two 8 minute-long intervals.

8/16/10

1. Getting help from DF to figure out how to the drop-down calendar/select your own date feature on a dashboard working.
2. Mostly free afternoon to continue working on tweaking the dashboard.
3. Taking less time than I thought it would to pull together my notes for the 1:1 with my manager.
4. Not missing too much from a meeting I was late to due to phone shift going over.
5. Potential buyer of the brown desk seemingly deciding on renting a car to get it from us (fingers crossed this actually goes through).
6. Having goat cheese to go with  my beets-quinoa dinner.

8/15/10

1. Having time to putter around in the morning before needing to head out.
2. Emily's Cafe testing out the prosecco bar I'd passed along to them at the showcase. I really liked it! Fruity bubbly cocktails, just to my taste, and with the fruit (lemons, raspberries, strawberries) very prettily arranged in glass vases/containers. I also like their use of chalkboard paint to create labels on glass bottles.
3. Deciding on the pulled pork over the mini burgers after tasting both.
4. Largest grocery shopping trip we've had in awhile made easier with having the car.
5. Finally getting to processing the large amount of peaches I've gotten from the CSA. Just sliced them up and steamed them slightly, as I'd learned from our time WWOOFing last week.
6. Having a good time starting off week 5 of C25K with Dan, out in the light rain.

8/14/10

1. Dan running out to buy Honey Bunches of Oats for me to have a non-cheap&sugary cereal.
2. Lying on the couch watching Sky High. I'd seen the ending a few times before.
3. Being somewhat productive and cleaning up the apartment a bit.
4. Arranging the DVDs on the green shelf I dragged home from Manhattan and fixing up the color gradient arrangement of the books.
5. Going on a date with Dan to see Inception and both agreeing it was worth the ticket price.
6. Getting dinner at Leo's Grandevous and enjoying the meal (chicken parm & veal marsala). Just well-done homey Italian food.

8/13/10

1. Feeling cute in my white linen top tied with a red ribbon belt (doubled up on itself and passed through the loop and tied), denim skirt, and laceless Converse slip-ons.
2. No lunchtime meeting so could get lunch with MG & co.
3. Indulging in Korean fried chicken for dinner, from the new Chicken Factory place. Quite good.
4. Stopping by a vintage shop on 6th that I'd been meaning to check out for awhile. Cute, expensive compared to CA but cheaper than Manhattan for sure.
5. Meghan coming over to watch Daria and hang out.
6. Watching random episodes of Monk and staying up late for no apparent reason.

8/12/10

1. Finishing off week 4 of C25K, though for some reason it was harder this time.
2. No questions being asked during the webinar I sat in as a panelist on.
3. Good fun fact question being asked at a meeting: what's your favorite burger/froyo place.
4. Said meeting not going over too long since we got kicked out of the room.
5. Our photographer Kelly telling us that we're more prepared than most couples so far.
6. Getting rid of the big brown TV stand and moving over the white bookshelf instead.

8/11/10

1. Good talk with IS about her learning style. She was very professional.
2. Sushi for lunch.
3. Being invited to another team's social outing for the quarter as they try to butter me up.
4. Grilled cheese sandwich for dinner on the Highline, followed by visiting a wine bar with MG/AJ/RC/BB.
5. BB calling the new apartment spacious.
6. Putting the extra pillows that came with the couch to use as BB crashed on our couch for the night.

8/10/10

1. Got up for the 2nd run of week 4 of C25K.
2. Helping newbies in product training set up and fix ad tags to get their first ads serving. Very cute, when they get excited that it works.
3. RC swapping phone shifts with me so I could horn in on a meeting I wish I needed to attend.
4. Attending said meeting and not feeling entirely lost.
5. Getting to the pickup spot earlier than Dan.
6. Finally got an over-the-toilet storage shelf, and for less than $10 too.

8/9/10

1. Being able to lounge around in the morning since I didn't need to shower.
2. MG sending a really nice email on my behalf.
3. Getting in to the office in just enough time to swoop up some breakfast (with avocado!)
4. Being told that I'm a superstar for the team.
5. Catching up with MG at lunch.
6. Last Flash class!

8/8/10

1. Absolutely perfect timing by me for: dropping off my stuff at the apartment, parking at Newport, taking the PATH in, getting eyebrows done, dropping my sister off at the Natural History museum, and then getting to Chinatown for 12.
2. Soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai with LW and her friend S! It's been so long since
3. Checking out MOMA with my sister. I particularly liked the weird exhibits like the Bruce Nauman's Days but also two specific black and white photographs, one by Sally Mann of her daughter, and one of Martha Graham that I would've liked to buy a print of but didn't find.
4. Going for the first Week 4 run on C25K, which involves two 5-minute stretches of running--and I didn't feel winded! It felt good, actually!
5. Making it back from the run just in time for Mad Men.
6. Dan coming home.

8/7/10

1. Walking to the Princeton airfield with AL and being wowed by the open fields and sky. Got a couple nice sketches done, too.
2. Talking to Caroline about buying flowers wholesale from her for the wedding.
3. Papaya salad and watermelon for lunch, mmm.
4. Going shopping at The Grove with my mom.
5. Working on sanding the round side table some more.
6. Learning some basic rhumba steps from my mom.

8/6/10

1. Picking okra turning out to be an easy and quick job, since the plants are tall enough that we didn't have to bend over much and although the green of the okra blends in a bit, they're located in predictable areas at the notches of the branches.
2. Satisfied feeling after weeding a whole row of Swiss chard. It looked so neat and clean afterwards, unlike with the carrots where it felt like our weeding didn't make much of a difference.
3. Dinner turning out really well, with AL as my sous chef again. Bean thread noodles with sesame oil and soy sauce and sauted grated carrots and green beans with garlic, then grated cucumber dressed with salt and sesame oil, green beans with garlic and oyster sauce, grated squash with peanuts again, and carrot medallions in butter with a bit of honey, sugar, nutmeg, and cloves.
4. Biodynamic peaches that were the most intense flavored peaches I've ever had. Plus I didn't get an allergic reaction to them at all (they were cut up into slices).
5. Johanna showing us the semi-path to her tent on the property.
6. Getting a clear night for stargazing on our last night here.

8/5/10

1. Being released from bean sorting purgatory to go baby cherry tomato picking. The littlest ones are my favorite, such intense bursts of sweet flavor.
2. Peeling garlic and watching Daria in the cool garage.
3. Sis giving me a ride to the appointment with the caterer.
4. Really productive meeting with the caterer, basic layout thought out, colors of linens looked at, menu getting close to being finalized.
5. Sis going with me to see the Mountain Lakes House again. The pond is being dredge up, but the house is as lovely as I remember and the spaces seem a bit bigger.
6. Going for another run with AL.

8/4/10

1. Coming in from the heat to make lunch, which turned out ok, actually. The grated squash plus peanuts were a hit, the kale didn't suck (need to cook a long time to cook down toughness, and went well with nutmeg and paprika), and people at least tried the watermelon-cucumber-basil gazpacho (tastes exactly how it sounds).
2. Watching Daria for the first time in the cool air of the garage.
3. The Kit Kat bar I picked up at Shop Rite really hitting the spot.
4. Caroline taking us to the local swimming hole, which has a normal pool for the kiddies but also a really lovely swimming quarry. I guess it was a rock quarry that filled with water? Trees all around, green water.
5. Sketching in the scene with a felt tip marker and making use of the fact that it bleeds by adding water to do semi watercolors on the last sketch.
6. Egg salad sandwiches and a pear for dinner. I'm not allergic to fresh pears (unlike apples), hooray.

8/3/10

1. Getting an army of helpers when it came down to the wire for sorting and packing up green beans for the CSA.
2. Taking a nap after lunch.
3. Going for a walk with AL and exploring the property a bit.
4. Successfully climbing a hay bale to take pictures.
5. Watermelon from the farm available.
6. Going for another run with AL, easier this time to go through the 3 minute stretch (longest in the plan thus far).

8/2/10

1. Scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and fruit salad with pears for breakfast.
2. Bright bursts of flavor from the little cherry tomatoes we picked.
3. Very tasty sweet potato soup (sweat 3 onions + butter + garlic? then sweet potatoes and vegetable stock) and some kind of cheesy bread for lunch.
4. Finishing picking the row of green beans we started yesterday. SO MANY BEANS.
5. Getting into Manhattan with enough time to grab a burrito from Chipotle for dinner before going to class.
6. Flash classmates asking me for a copy of my finished Flash final project so they can play with it and show to their students.

8/1/10

1. Getting to AL's rather early, thanks to my sister's driving abilities.
2. Finding our way to the farm in Princeton quite early as well.
3. Getting in some bean picking before it started raining steadily.
4. Taking a quick nap with the windows still open the cool rain air.
5. Fixing dinner of 'fried rice' with AL for everyone with the vegetables and seasonings available.
6. Walking/running on nearby roads with AL.

7/31/10

1. Managing to fit everything I wanted to bring to my parents' into Dan's car, with all his stuff and RC's too.
2. My dad showing me how to use his electric sander to start the project of refinishing the round side table we got off craigslist.
3. Red duck curry for lunch, from my mom.
4. Getting spray paint for a metal basket I found in Hoboken.
5. Having fun bridesmaid dress shopping with my sister at Freehold Mall. She was willing to try most things, though we weren't successful in finding anything that was the right light blue.
6. Watermelon and watching Bones with my sister.

7/30/10

1. Last day at work before vacation!
2. SA taking the lead to skip a meeting so got to have lunch with BB and later AJ and MG too.
3. Doing a decent job of wrapping up my open tickets before the end of the day.
4. Getting an email from BS after I declined an invite to his office hours in NY next week asking me what was the deal.
5. Dinner with AM, MG, and AJ at Chelsea Marketplace.
6. Cleaning the apartment and packing to Glee playlists on YouTube.

7/29/10

1. Running into BB while filling in the form for my biometric screening and chatting to her about getting involved with the new product, which she was in favor of.
2. Not feeling defensive when the nurse told me I needed to lose 25 pounds.
3. Re-reading the beginning of Mudbound at breakfast, after having finished it last night.
4. SL helping me wrap up a ticket quickly by pointing out an obvious JS problem in the creative code.
5. Dan being home to receive my last Nordstrom package.
6. Finishing up the rest of my squash-tomato-eggplant-bread crumbs dish while watching TV with Dan.

7/28/10

1. Troubleshooting training ending early after only 2 hours, so no need to worry about swapping my phone shift.
2. Macaroni and cheese day at lunch, plus watermelon.
3. Successfully uploading a batch of products on my own.
4. Getting tomatoes at the CSA again.
5. Making a squash-eggplant-tomato gratin for dinner, with bread crumb and parmesan cheese topping.
6. Finishing up eating dinner just in time to start the fast for tomorrow morning's biometric screening.

7/27/10

1. Finishing up my Flash final and figuring out how to ease the reset motion using TweenLite. Win.
2. Getting plane tickets to visit Mama G in September!
3. Getting to know PH at happy hour.
4. Going for a run with Dan, making up for alarm not going off in the morning.
5. Dinner of quinoa + salt + pepper + fresh corn from CSA + fresh basil from CSA + olive oil.
6. Remembering it was my mom's birthday and not forgetting entirely to give her a call.

7/26/10

1. Running into MG at breakfast and catching up after the weekend.
2. Not entirely missing a sync meeting that I'd forgotten was scheduled for 9:30.
3. Concentrating sufficiently to complete the assigned portion of a bugout for the first time.
4. Getting a liege wafel for dinner from a wafel truck.
5. Getting quite a bit of work done on my Flash final, including figuring out how to do the drag/drop ActionScript.
6. Dan being around to accept my two Nordstroms packages.