1/31/11

1. Talking to MF about our dreams and fears of starting our own creative businesses.
2. West coast teammates getting back from Vegas earlier than I had expected, so they could help clean up the lingering work.
3. Feeling really, really good after tonight's Crossfit workout. Just...clean, and expansive inside, once I'd managed to catch my breath. Lots of nice encouragement from the other attendees/instructor.
4. Getting to the library in time to return some books and just in case, checking whether there were any books on the hold shelves for me, which there were!
5. Dinner of finishing off the quesadilla ingredients.
6. Excellent quality on the Gmail video chat with Dan.

A year ago today.

1/30/11

1. Dan figuring out how to fix the drooping shelves/pole in my closet system in the bedroom without having to take the top shelves off.
2. Gobbling up the last two maple sugar cookies while Dan was out.
3. Only really having to dry one of my two loads of laundry for an extra cycle.
4. Dan getting a few more groceries for me, including grape Kool-Aid packets for dyeing my hat and active dry yeast to make bread some time.
5. Quesadillas for dinner hitting the spot.
6. The water bath really running clear like the instructions said after all the dye was soaked up by the yarn! 

A year ago today.

1/29/11

1. Full breakfast with home fries (with onion), eggs, and avocado.
2. My labeler arriving, allowing me to finish up with the spice jars organization project and then run amuck labeling other jars and bottles in the apartment.
3. Going out on date night.
4. Dan not getting openly annoyed when it turned out that the restaurant had changed their menu from their website and there wasn't much he could eat.
5. The lady sitting next to time obligingly moving her chair at my request so Dan could have a teensy bit of elbow room.
6. Dan getting himself a slice of pizza after all to make up the rest of his dinner.

A year ago today.

1/28/11

1. Getting to the office just before my manager for our morning meeting.
2. Watching the Life in a Day movie.
3. Testing the various soaps, scrubs, and lotions at Sabon.
4. No hassle returning cracked soap dispenser to the Container Store.
5. Not waiting in line at Trader Joe's for very long at all.
6. Finishing my hat with just enough yarn leftover, yes!

A year ago today.

1/27/11

1. BH being willing to grab some wine corks for me from TGIAF.
2. Satisfying ticket work: tied one to an existing bug, wrote up a thorough escalation for another, and figured out another one through deduction.
3. Having a good time walking over to the bar for hanging out with BK, even if the bar itself was bit too crowded.
4. Finding the last tube organizer on the shelf at the Container Store *and* the soap dispenser they said the store might not have in stock until after the weekend.
5. Finishing the benchmark workout over 2 minutes faster than when I did it for the first time less than 2 weeks ago. HELLZ YEAH!
6. Wine corks seeming to actually be successful in replacing the missing foot on the folding stool I bought yesterday (lost one foot on the way home).

A year ago today.

1/26/11

1. A girl walking past me on the way to the PATH station complimenting me on my snow boots with a quick and casual "cute boots!"
2. Getting myself an avocado bagel even though I was late to my phone shift.
3. Massage therapist giving it a good go for extra strong pressure for my sore shoulders/back.
4. Scheduling pick up of Ikea folding stool (for sewing table) just a few hours in advance.
5. Picking up/returning library books.
6. Not hailing in Hoboken when I got back here from Jersey City.

A year ago today.

1/25/11

1. Really nicely ripe avocado available at breakfast, along with yellow scrambled eggs.
2. Helping BB practice her presentation and her taking my feedback about not coming across positive/excited enough quite well, as I didn't think about softening it at all.
3. Scoping out all the vintage stores on my list in the Lorimer St./Bedford Ave. area.
4. Crossfit instructor pointing out that the workout ("Fight Gone Bad") was a bit mentally easier on the people who went first because the people who went 2nd would have a better idea of how tough the workout is.
5. Breaking 200 on the workout!
6. The OXO tub stopper I bought seeming to actually be effective in slowing down water from draining during my bath.

A year ago today.

1/24/11

1. Sufficiently warm in my core thanks to fuzzy handknit sweater.
2. Despite PATH train getting delayed in the tunnel for a bit, getting to the office in time to scoop at least some of the sun-dried tomato/cheese/egg frittata, which wasn't bad at all.
3. No calls during my shift and queues pretty clean, leaving time to continue catch-up work from Friday.
4. Really excellent Southern comfort foods lunch: buttermilk biscuit, cheesy grits with ham, collard greens, BBQ rib, honey-fried chicken.
5. Creaming NE and this engineer who's apparently actually won some foosball tournaments with MG.
6. Finishing the Crossfit workout with the 22lb. bar for the overhead squats the whole time! I think they may have reduced the number of rounds after observing our struggles during practice.

A year ago today.

1/23/11

1. Breaking out the O Chevron socks to wear over my gray leggings and with my cream/tan oxfords. Polka dotted navy/black dress with puffy short sleeves. Feeling very girly vintage-y. 
2. Getting brunch at Frankie's 17 with AJ and MG, very yummy.
3. AJ accompanying my to check out Re/Dress for the first time, a vintage/resale shop in Brooklyn specifically geared towards plus sizes. Win!
4. AJ picking out both of the items I ended up getting from Re/Dress, a wool Pendleton boyfriend blazer that fits quite well and a white/gold belt.
5. Re-arranging the living room furniture on my own to increase the "flow" and "breath" as described in the Apartment Therapy book and feeling that the end result looks a lot more open and less cluttered. Have to get rid of our Ikea Poang chair, though.
6. Re-organizing my craft shelf and supplies.

A year ago today.

1/22/11

1. Dan figuring out how to email in our dinner reservations next week at Tutuma Social Club (Groupon about to expire).
2. Figuring out how to use my looped scarf as a bit of a sling for my right arm, which hurt more than it did yesterday.
3. Dan going grocery shopping.
4. Catching up on my Google Reader.
5. Addressing our save-the-cards and discovering that for some reason the printing company gave us 16 extra cards, which gives us plenty of breathing room for mistakes.
6. Dan making soy butter cookies (with a peanut butter cookies recipe) and doing all the dishes in the sink when he was done.

A year ago today.

1/21/11

1. Nice conversation during hour-long table massage with DR.
2. Finally going and getting my eyebrows threaded, after putting this off for a couple weeks.
3. UPS letting Dan pick up my big heavy package of glass spice and tea jars from their truck.
4. Dan being home when UPS and USPS delivered a whole bunch of other stuff: Sherlock DVD (love!), Flip & Tumble bags from Jasmere promotion, save-the-date cards (they look awesome)...
5. Dan doing a ton of other chores, including picking up laundry, dishes, taking out trash, etc.
6. Spending the evening cleaning the jars, peeling labels from them, and doing preliminary organization of spices (labeler not here yet) while re-watching episodes 1 and 2 of Sherlock.

A year ago today.

1/20/11

1. Seeing the plate set at BBB that I'd picked out online to add to the registry and liking the shape/weight/feel of it in person.
2. Getting to Crossfit about 5 minutes early, despite overestimating the amount of time between work and when I need to get on the L, again.
3. Crossfit instructor specifically mentioning without me having to ask (well, perhaps prompted by my increasingly skeptical facial expression) that the workout (the "Fran") could be completed using a PVC pipe in the thrusters, rather than the weighted bar.
4. Finishing the workout within the target window of 5 minutes, by quite a bit! I wasn't quite sure I'd be able to do that many squats. EM's suggestion of breaking down the counts into threes (7x3, 5x3, 3x3) really helped.
5. Making myself a 4-egg omelet with leftover brisket and goat cheese for dinner.
6. Taking a long bath while finishing Ender's Game.

A year ago today.

1/19/11

1. Not quite a incapacitated sore from Crossfit as I thought I would be. Good!
2. Bringing the granny cart with me to work, originally intended to help with hauling UPS package home at the end of the day, but being useful for bringing gym clothes to work too.
3. Going to RL's office hours and having a really helpful and open chat with him about how to improve my communication skills. I'd only signed up for a 15 minute session but no one else booked time so he ended up spending the whole hour with me.
4. Returning/picking up new library books.
5. Drawing myself a bath to work out soreness.
6. Going to bed earlier than I have been in the last few nights and sleeping really well.

A year ago today.

1/18/11

1. Manageably sore after last night's Crossfit class--enough to feel it, but not enough to be really incapacitated.
2. Excellent lunch, lobster mac&cheese and a grilled cheese/ham sandwich.
3. Just managing to squeeze in picking up order from The Container Store (very efficient) and running to Sephora to buy a tube of Supergoop to try out for a new facial sunscreen.
4. Getting the form for at least the dead-lift, the TA for the on ramp class didn't make any correction comments at all on my second go around. It was fun, actually, figuring out how to move my body in the right way to pick up the weight.
5. Finishing the Tabata squats workout!
6. Unpacking The Container Store order and arranging the shelves and soap dispensers and things.

A year ago today.

1/17/11

1. Brisket's flavor intensifying overnight, richer and spicier now.
2. Photographing almost all my stash and handknit projects I have around to put up on Ravelry. Took pretty much the whole day, far longer than I expected, but feels good to be organized, as always. That site really has excellent functionality, like their photo slurp feature. Also pleased with figuring out how to photograph myself in the mirror.
3. First on ramp class for Crossfit going pretty well, the teacher was very good: explained everything well, enough time to demo/practice/correct, very patient and encouraging, never dismissive at all.
4. Finishing the benchmark workout in 9:15! I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish but the modifications suggested for scaling were perfect for me.
5. Just enough butternut squash risotto left for me for dinner.
6. Dan letting me peel off the labels on all of his bathroom products too, I'm trying to make everything look neater and less cluttered. A lot of bath products are either blue themselves or have a blue cap...

A year ago today.

1/16/11

1. Dan returning some stuff to Bed Bath & Beyond and then picking up almost everything on the list that I made for him, including a new fancy bathmat.
2. Pretty much spending most of the day online, researching and writing.
3. Dan reminding me to get started on the pulled brisket in time to get it started before the football game.
4. Brisket coming together quite quickly, not too much prep needed.
5. Discovering The Container Store's click & pick up feature.
6. Dan letting me spend a good amount of joint money at The Container Store to organize spices, teas, and make the various soap dispensers prettier.

A year ago today.

1/15/11

1. Thoroughly cleaning the apartment, which took 3 hours. Even swept and vacuumed behind all movable furniture.
2. Not needing to turn on the heat until fairly late in the evening, thanks to my many, many layers.
3. Google TV arrived! Hurrah for not having to go pick it up from a FedEx station.
4. Dan regaining his good humor by playing with the Google TV box after hauling back a very heavy amount of groceries.
5. Making butternut squash risotto for myself for dinner and (mostly) successfully following these instructions for peeling and dicing a whole butternut squash (from the CSA...way back when) instead of just using pre-diced squash.
6. Letting myself set up our registries and having lots of fun picking out things I really like.

A year ago today.

1/14/11

1. AL coming in for lunch and being less overwhelmed this time around.
2. Feeling like I was helpful in MG's training as her TA.
3. Finally calling a client I was avoiding and finding that she was pretty easily satisfied with my answers.
4. Lively conversation with BV about choosing to live in Jersey City vs. Hoboken.
5. Though I forgot various other errands I meant to do before going home, I did stop by the Verizon store and got myself back on the unlimited data plan when the guy looked up my previous usage and said I was around 800MB/month, with some months at 2GB. Erm, yeah, 150MB isn't enough.
6. Inspired by a girl in the street I saw today who had the ingenious combination of leggings + knee-high socks + ankle boots, which solves the bared ankle dilemma, I spent several hours on the Sock Dreams site and finally placed a rather large order (that took me quite awhile to trim down). I'm quite excited.

A year ago today.

1/13/11

1. Shooting the breeze with my manager on biking and barefoot running and Crossfit.
2. Chair massage where I felt like AS really went after pinching and kneading my tight shoulder muscles.
3. Attending a talk on how to speed on website loading and feeling like I understood most of it.
4. Getting some knitting done at said talk.
5. Having a couple different good 1:1 conversations with various newbies at the happy hour.
6. A couple boxes of sushi left still for me to grab for dinner.

A year ago today.

1/12/11

1. Walking to the train station with Dan, after he only got a 2 hour delayed start.
2. Knitting through our team meeting with EN. Working on this hat.
3. Meeting a group of engineers I'll be working with and finding them all to be quite nice and friendly, not as intimidating as I thought it would be.
4. Got to the library just in time to pick up two really heavy sewing reference books. I should buy one, this'll just be a way to know which suits me better.
5. Dan having a frozen chicken pot pie in the freezer that I heated up for dinner.
6. Finally ordered save-the-date postcards! And played around with coupon codes enough to save an extra few dollars.

A year ago today.

1/11/11

1. Dropping off Dan's un-done laundry at the dry cleaner's across the street, just to do something nice for him, and realizing I could pass the pickup receipt to him in our mailbox and not have to trudge up back to the apartment.
2. Getting in touch with the venue coordinator and realizing that the reason we hadn't received a notice to pay down our full deposit was the move.
3. Paying sufficient attention to a training; it's an unpleasant to come back to something after you've realized you've zoned out.
4. People receiving the on-call schedule rather better than I had expected.
5. Finalizing the save-the-date design with the ever patient AL.
6. Discovering the BBC's tie-in materials for Sherlock to be pretty funny.

A year ago today.

1/10/11

1. Plenty of avocado left at breakfast.
2. Getting several compliments on my vintage red silk blouse, handmade cream plaid skirt, thin black bow belt, black leggings & suede boots, Prismera splash necklace, and vintage black & gold Art Deco-ish earrings outfit.
3. Getting more save-the-date card ideas from Amy that I love.
4. EN managing to get to the office here for lunch before setting off back home to Philly.
5. Dan being patient about me being 30 minutes late getting out from the office to go to the tailor's.
6. Breakfast for dinner.

A year ago today.

1/9/11

1. Making a big breakfast with bacon, biscuits, home fries, and scrambled eggs with goat cheese.
2. Getting ourselves to the Frick Collection right before the introductory film started at 1:30. Kind of inspiring story behind it, actually, and the museum overall is just lovely. I really prefer museums with a mix of things together and in a home-like environment, like the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum in Boston.
3. Free audio guides at the Frick being quite helpful but not longwinded.
4. Plenty of time in the afternoon to get to the Cooper-Hewitt before it closed, with its cool items on the sustainability design forefront, even if it wasn't quite what I expected.
5. Plenty of leftovers for dinner for both Dan and me.
6. Watching the commentary of the first episode of Sherlock Holmes and the extras, including the unaired original pilot (man they made it so much better). I am still in love with Benedict Cumberbatch.

A year ago today.

1/8/11

1. EN also being of the "no need to rush to get up in the morning on weekends" school of thought.
2. Going to see the Three Faiths exhibitions at the NYPL--one of those free, educational events I really should do more of in NYC.
3. Admiring the dresses in the Balenciaga exhibit at the Spanish Institute, with their sculptural constructions. Simple forms, not fussy, but still so interesting, especially when paired with the artwork or photos of traditional Spanish costumes to see the references.
4. Catching up with EN in general.
5. EN discovering that red wine (Yellow Tail shiraz) and chocolate truffles at the same time is an amazing feeling in your mouth.
6. Finishing the other two episodes of Sherlock Holmes. Benedict Cumberbatch, you have a ridiculous name but I'm in love with you anyway.

A year ago today.

1/7/11

1. Plenty of avocado left at breakfast plus special breakfast had scrambled eggs with goat cheese and toasted bread of some kind.
2. Getting a satisfying amount of ticket work done in one go.
3. Accompanying AJ to a bead shop near Union Square.
4. Getting to Penn station area just in time to pick up EN from the Bolt Bus.
5. Getting dinner (Cuban sandwich) from Isla, which seemed pretty authentic.
6. My mind being blown by the modernized Sherlock Holmes BBC mini-series. I am in love.

A year ago today.

1/6/11

1. Yellow scrambled eggs still available at breakfast by the time I got in.
2. EN taking a bunch of my unloved yarn for projects she was going to start anyway. Score.
3. Finally putting together a call rotation sheet, something I've been meaning to do since before I left on the cruise.
4. Excellent prix fixe dinner at the MOMA cafe: scallop appetizer, pasta with chicken and mushrooms and cream sauce, and maple walnut cake.
5. Getting to know AC better over dinner and catching up with MG and AJ.
6. Dan taking care of dishes and his laundry before EN's visit tomorrow.

A year ago today.

1/5/11

1. Getting in late to my shift (as I often am, unfortunately) but not quite too late to make me feel entirely bad about still grabbing some breakfast.
2. Client call being led really well by EL and getting background that explains a lot about this particular client. Not much needed from my side, either.
3. Bringing a knitting project to the team meeting really helping me stay focused/patient.
4. Picked up a good haul of library books, including the Fashion File book from Janie Bryant (Mad Men costume designer), which I didn't think I was going to get for ages.
5. Getting quick responses on the call for addresses from family and friends for eventual wedding invitations.
6. Spending quality time on Ravelry planning projects for the rest of my yarn stash.

A year ago today.

1/4/11

1. Slowly easing back into the grind. Open queues/phones less busy than I thought they would be.
2. Getting lunch with AJ/BB/RC.
3. Vanguard phone staff being very nice and patient helping me deal with transferring funds over from Fidelity, when I kept running into browser problems.
4. Being able to grab dinner from the office when I left for the hockey game this time, instead of having to go out to buy something.
5. RC seeming to taken his best man duties seriously and being ok with either giving a toast or not.
6. Having a really great time at the Devils vs. Wild game with the fam + Dan + RC. My mom really enjoyed herself, I think, and we'll try to go to more sporting events as a way to spend quality time together, I think.

A year ago today.

1/3/11

1. Waking up feeling much stronger than I did yesterday.
2. Just enough leftover fried rice for breakfast.
3. Discovering leftover Korean food from last week for lunch, so I didn't have to make anything new.
4. Getting various little projects around the apartment done, which always feels satisfying even though it also always takes longer than expected. Most notably, spray painted dresser/desk handles black to make them feel a bit more modern.
5. Providence calling in the form of the Crossfit people calling me back, after I'd called them earlier today about possibly not making it in due to being sick, to tell me that someone else wanted a spot in tonight's class instead. I was wavering on whether to go or not and took this as a sign to stay home and continue recovering.
6. Enough food around to make another batch of fried rice for dinner.

A year ago today.

1/2/11

1. Not having to rush in the morning because we were running late enough to have to shift the timeline of drop-offs, and this lateness wasn't my fault.
2. Plenty of Tylenol cold medicine in the apartment to help ease my cold/flu symptoms.
3. Dan reading to me to help me nod off into a recuperative nap.
4. Sinuses clearing once in awhile, especially in the hot shower.
5. Getting up enough energy to make fried rice for dinner.
6. Dan letting me have control of the remote after the Giants game was over, leading me to watch Buffy and Enchanted over other stuff he would deem "better."

A year ago today.

1/1/11

1. Mom letting me and my sister sleep in quite a bit.
2. Getting waistband handsewing on my skirts done before needing to head out.
3. Having a good time at the mall with my bridal party and future mother-in-law!
4. Teriyaki sauce marinated roasted chicken wings at dinner.
5. Visiting my grandma.
6. Playing games in their Wii with my sister, though I'm a terrible video game player.

A year ago today.

12/31/10

1. Rest of avocado available to have with scrambled eggs for breakfast.
2. Dan going to pick up the car and run errands, so that I could have a slow morning and shower.
3. FedEx delivering my new serger before we left the apartment, so yay, I have it! And also don't have to go get it from the FedEx pickup center.
4. Fitting all the laundry that's been just lying on the floor while we wait for the snow to clear from the stairs down into the basement into my little red suitcase to do while I'm at my parents'.
5. Chatting with Dan's sister CS on our drive down.
6. Red shrimp at dinner.

A year ago today.