12/31/11

1. Pork and chive dumplings for breakfast.
2. Finishing up the door stoppers for my mom and having them fit perfectly.
3. Not needing to buy tools from Lowe's and just getting them from my dad instead.
4. Finding a washable hat with a baseball cap brim but with ear flaps and insulated with goose down as a present for Dad.
5. Shrimp and bok choy with rice for dinner.
6. Making the best apple pie yet, thanks to actually keeping the butter and dough as cold as possible.

A year ago today.

12/30/11

1. Getting to AL's a couple minutes early, even with the Roberts Rd. detour.
2. Really really enjoying the Muppets movie, just a fun time. Great wardrobe for Amy Adams' character too.
3. Picking up a few things at the mall in desirable lengths (socks) and colors (coral tights, mustard clutch).
4. Finding my purple cowl still in the Gap changing room after having left it there.
5. Started knitting a pair socks for my grandma.
6. Watching rest of digitized home videos with mom and sister.

A year ago today.

12/29/11

1. Making up a quick breakfast for myself of quinoa with steamed eggs and fresh herbs.
2. Brunch at work with the eng team members; crab cakes and biscuits with sausage and gravy were highlights.
3. Checking out the new, much larger Purl Soho store that has both the knitting and sewing stuff. Really nice, though somewhat surprisingly crowded when we went.
4. Got home with enough time to finish packing up stuff, physically and electronically.
5. Talking to my sister and finding that she's matured a lot in the last year.
6. Beef noodle soup at home for dinner.

A year ago today.

12/28/11

1. New type of massage with AS.
2. BB being around for lunch.
3. Meetings in the afternoon ending earlier than expected.
4. Finishing the documentation project I wanted to do this week!
5. Quick groceries stop at the Garden of Eden to pick up dinner (burger) and snack food (apples and cheese) for myself.
6. Sewing up the door draft blocker and dog bed projects for my mom going more quickly than I expected.

A year ago today.

12/27/11

1. Eating breakfast and reading my Kindle.
2. Reese's Pieces for snacking throughout the day. 
3. Easy-going and quiet day at work.
4. Dan having washed our new thick robes during the day so I could change into it after getting pretty soaked on the way home without an umbrella.
5. Leftovers from yesterday for dinner.
6. Downloading more materials to add to my Kindle, including the PDF of Midnight Sun and my favorite Austen novels, all free.

A year ago today.

12/26/11

1. Movement from putting gifts and such away actually calming my queasy stomach a bit in the morning.
2. Finding a sock knitting pattern to make another pair for my grandma that would use up yarn that I've had around for awhile.
3. Watching North and South on Netflix.
4. Watching Sherlock on Netflix.
5. Getting off the couch long enough to vacuum the dustiest parts of the apartment.
6. Dan making delicious Swedish meatballs (along with mashed potatoes and broccoli) for dinner.

A year ago today.

12/25/11

1. Dim sum with the family.
2. Getting bubble tea from Kam Man.
3. Watching home videos at my grandma's and all of us laughing a lot.
4. My sister coming with me to Christmas in Marlboro and staying for playing charades as well.
5. Plenty of parking spots available when we got back to Hoboken.
6. Leftovers available for dinner.

A year ago today.

12/24/11

1. Dan not being too annoyed that I got the time wrong for when he was going to pick me up to go to Costco.
2. Finishing off the rest of the red duck curry for lunch.
3. Making a few online purchases to get enough debit card transactions for the month.
4. Relaxing in the afternoon reading on my Kindle in front of the fire.
5. Heading over for a bit of Christmas in Shrewsbury.
6. Watching home videos and later Family Feud with my mom and sister.

A year ago today.

12/23/11

1. Deciding to go to this mini-reunion at our high school and not missing much even though we went 2 hours late. Plenty of people there, actually, even surprisingly so.
2. EL, old calc teacher, and JB, chess team coach remembering me. 
3. Finally getting to get to talk to MR a bit after waiting a long time.
4. Catching up with AL and a mint hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts.
5. Red duck curry and papaya salad for dinner, my favorite.
6. Going to see Sherlock Holmes 2 with my mom and sister.

A year ago today.

12/22/11

1. Potstickers for breakfast.
2. Meat sauce with noodles for a late lunch.
3. Getting a good amount done throughout the day, working from home.
4. Finishing off 3 loads of laundry across the day and figuring out a way to hang and drap my many pairs of pants from various racks
5. My sister helping me wrap up all the presents, which didn't use that much wrapping paper.
6. Winter solstice today...days will get longer from here!

A year ago today.

12/21/11

1. Getting in in time to grab breakfast.
2. Crashing AJ and PJL's lunch with EM.
3. Afternoon meetings getting canceled or rescheduled so I could leave the office a bit early and stop by the library on the way home.
4. Having enough time to clean up the apartment a bit and pack up my stuff before my sister came.
5. My sister battling traffic to come pick me up and give me a ride home.
6. Getting set up on my new Kindle!

A year ago today.

12/20/11

1. Grabbing lunch with AJ and MG after a meeting.
2. SS visiting the office!
3. Going to a bakery with SS and JE to have a hot drink and chat.
4. Stopping by the 23rd St. library right before it closed.
5. Getting my eyebrows threaded. I've been lazier about it lately, averaging closer to once a month or so, so it was good to get this done.
6. Making it home without getting too wet from the rain.

A year ago today.

12/19/11

1. Getting to the gym in the morning.
2. Mostly casual lunch to catch up with MS while she's in town.
3. A weekly meeting not having too much on the agenda and ending in sharing of gossip and funny travel stories instead.
4. Despite the people staffing the tables being rather snotty, finding coworkers who were willing to let me check their versions to compare before picking which one I wanted.
5. A surprising lack of waiting to pick up the holiday gift.
6. Though leaving the office a bit late, getting to the library in time before it closed.

A year ago today.

12/18/11

1. Waking up well-rested at 9:30.
2. Being able to eat the rest of the soup for lunch after all.
3. Getting a good cleaning of the apartment done.
4. Being able to help CS put together dinner.
5. Finally figuring out how to play a board game with a rather long booklet of rules and enjoying it.
6. Not getting home too late.

A year ago today.

12/17/11

1. Having the leftover sandwich from Taco Truck for breakfast. 
2. Re-reading bits of Pegasus throughout the day while lying on the couch.
3. Dan making Italian wedding soup for dinner again, with the various improvements we discussed.
4. Dan figuring out a better way to make hot chocolate with the Swiss Miss packets.
5. Watching the last Disney movie, Tangled, on Netflix.
6. Getting Dan to agree at least that there was too much of an age disparity in Tangled.

A year ago today.

12/16/11

1. Making it in time to catch the tail end of a team breakfast.
2. Getting lunch with AJ, EM, BL, and ST. Had been getting lunch mostly by myself this week, it was nice to have company.
3. Leaving work early to pick up books from the library for the weekend.
4. Dan agreeing to me getting takeout for dinner.
5. Chorizo tacos and a carnitas torta from The Taco Truck being delicious.
6. Starting and finishing Pegasus in the evening.

A year ago today.

12/15/11

1. Missed breakfast, but made it in time for my first meeting of the day, which also ended early.
2. Another productive working session with SS and a clear plan of action going forward.
3. A demo for the engineering team going better than I thought it would. 
4. Pleasantly surprised by my bonus of the year and raise for next year's salary.
5. Deciding to skip an evening social event (which turned out not to be much of a real wine and cheese tasting anyway) to just go home.
6. Finishing I Love Yous Are For White People.

A year ago today.

12/14/11

1. Back-to-back chair massage.
2. Learning how to play bocce.
3. Delicious burger all to myself, and well-spiced fries.
4. Really great space for a work off-site, different activities and sitting areas and getting to talk of each of the members of my team that I normally don't interact much with.
5. Others deciding to leave about the time that I was done for the night, so it wasn't awkward.
6. Getting home extremely quickly for having come from Brooklyn, thanks to the cab to WTC PATH.

A year ago today.

12/13/11

1. Starting and finishing Will Grayson, Will Grayson and finding it to be unlike what I thought it would be.
2. All morning and most of the afternoon free to catch up on email and such.
3. SH being very patient with me when I was being a bit stubborn about simplifying some metrics work.
4. Writing up my accomplishments for the quarter taking less time than I thought it would.
5. SR and RC coming over to eat dinner and hang out in our apartment.
6. Finding an edited version of BC's appearance on Millionaire Matchmaker and find it amazing and hilarious. Thank you, anonymous person!

A year ago today.

12/12/11

1. Meeting room booked for the working session not being very far from my desk (since I ran a bit late...)
2. Really productive start to the week with a long working session with SS.
3. Grabbing food after a noon meeting and bringing it back to my desk to browse Google Reader.
4. Dropping off books due to the library.
5. DC sending me a funny email response to this post about a 26-toed cat like the one her family has.
6. Starting on Lauren Oliver's second book, Delirium.

A year ago today.

12/11/11

1. Sunny day compensating for having to wait outside for awhile.
2. Having a great time going out to brunch with the folks I met at the APW Party a few months ago. Couple friends!
3. Dan indulging me in walking through the Union Square holiday market a bit.
4. Chocolate covered pretzels for an afternoon snack.
5. Dan making Italian wedding soup for dinner with really delicious turkey sausage meatballs.
6. Dan going to a bar for the first half of the Giants game and letting me have the TV to watch Once Upon a Time 

A year ago today.

12/10/11

1. Finally checking out the Brooklyn Flea market with MB and finding two glittery blue Christmas tree pins as gifts for KS and ES.
2. Getting an Asia dog and lavender lemonade for lunch.
3. Fitting the meat order into the shopping cart and despite having to carry it up and down stairs on the various forms of public transportation
4. Dan helping me clean the apartment very quickly in case people would come over afterwards.
5. MG, AM, and EM coming over to Hoboken for a birthday dinner at Cucharama with us.
6. The appetizer I ordered being better than expected, coming with this yogurt and cilantro sauce that complimented it quite well.

A year ago today.

12/9/11

1. Breaking out my white raw silk dress to wear to the opera.
2. Getting lunch with EM, BB, and MG over at the Chelsea market cafe that opened awhile ago but I hadn't tried until now, where they had veal bone marrow that was deliciously rich.
3. Getting a sandwich from Lucy's Whey with a bottle of Honest Tea from the office for dinner.
4. Getting to the opera in plenty of time to meet up with my parents despite some misadventures in meeting up with Dan.
5. Finding the production of Madame Butterfly to be breathtaking and beautiful.
6. My dad calling and leaving an apologetic voicemail after I reminded him as we were leaving that he forgot it was my birthday today.

A year ago today.

12/8/11

1. Getting a quiet lunch with EM.
2. Finally having a solid chunk of time to write up feedback for AJ on the materials for a webinar.
3. BB getting peer pressured into going to the holiday party tonight.
4. Being really impressed by the venue; I'd actually never been to the New York Public Library before this.
5. Winning some scratch-off lottery tickets in the casino room.
6. Staying much later than I had planned but having an awesome time in the piano bar room, where the pianist was just a great entertainer and had an astounding repertoire in meeting the requests from the audience.

A year ago today.

12/7/11

1. Feeling like I was helpful on a client call in the morning, which SF did a great job of leading.
2. Participating in the great APW book buy and watching its Amazon rank climb throughout the day until it reach #29!
3. Chair massage with AS.
4. Successfully making dinner reservations for Saturday.
5. Stopping by the vintage pop-up market in Chelsea market. Didn't buy anything and found most of it to be too expensive but had fun all the same, especially at the last booth that had more reasonable prices and interesting stock.
6. Starting and finishing Chalice.

A year ago today.

12/6/11

1. My favorite breakfast: yellow scrambled eggs, avocados, potato pancakes, and re-read Sunshine some more. Saved some of it and had it for lunch later too!
2. Getting really nice feedback from my colleagues about my tone on a client call I jumped on--good to know those client-facing skills aren't getting rusty.
3. Really liking one of the pairs of short boots I got on a whim from Zappos.
4. Getting reassurance from my manager that I'm not digging myself into a negative personal brand thing.
5. Having a good time at the cooking lesson offsite with the team, which included a really tall alcohol fire--fortunately no one was hurt.
6. Making donations to the NYPL and the NJ Food Bank and getting them match by both the company and my boss' boss.

A year ago today.

12/5/11

1. Taking a sick day and sleeping in a bit after waking up every couple hours through the night.
2. Not running out of soft tissues during the day.
3. Finally getting to cleaning up the receipts and such for November.
4. Managing to keep up on work email and dialing in to a meeting late in the day from home.
5. Having EN over for the night, sadly last time this semester. It's been so great to see her this regularly!
6. Watching more home videos from an even earlier period, 1988-1990, with video footage of my maternal grandparents in there!

A year ago today.

12/4/11

1. Sleeping in in the morning.
2. Making it to the craft fair exactly on time and soaking in a bit of sun.
3. Buying some sausage bread from Antique Bakery.
4. LH showing me the apartment she bought with her parents and talking through the renovations they have planned.
5. Finishing making apple dumplings in time before Dan wanted to get to bed.
6. Putting my final edits on my sister's resume.

A year ago today.

12/3/11

1. Getting myself to the gym in the morning and figuring out my 1RM for deadlift at 173lbs.!
2. Making an enormous meal of scrambled eggs, andouille sausage, and apples with cheese and sunflower butter and fresh herbs.
3. Letting myself lie on the couch for much fo the afternoon re-reading my favorite bits of Sunshine by Robin McKinley.
4. Taking a two hour nap on the same couch.
5. Getting a call from SD and catching up for over an hour.
6. Finally doing productive stuff again and cleaning the whole apartment with help from Dan on the dishes.

A year ago today.

12/2/11

1. MB and her boyfriend MP coming in for lunch and a quick tour of the office.
2. Packing up my desk pretty quickly for the move.
3. Helping my sister hone her resume further after she did a good job of taking in my initial feedback to produce a good second draft.
4. Going for what ended up just being a nice walk in the warmer weather with AJ since the line for the Madewell sample sale was ridiculous.
5. Getting dinner at Leo's with Dan and enjoying its low-key ambiance.
6. Watching another disc of home videos from around my 4th birthday.

A year ago today.

12/1/11

1. Breakfast at home of apples and cheese.
2. Getting ready at AJ's place with BB as well.
3. Finally breaking out the Stila liquid eyeliner I bought a couple months ago.
4. Having change in hand to give AJ for the cab and pizza.
5. Leaving the holiday party earlier than last year and making it home quite quickly.
6. Dan putting away his reading and staying up a bit to listen to me talk.

A year ago today.

11/30/11

1. PS giving up his seat at the table during the review meeting so that I could see the monitors better.
2. Finding that most of the items from the shortlist have already been built.
3. Brainstorming ideas for a new UI for a certain feature with JE.
4. My manager taking on the difficult parts of a project.
5. Going to the barbell class and getting a good workout.
6. Relaxing after the class by reading on the couch.

A year ago today.

11/29/11

1. Commuting in the morning with MB on her way back home.
2. Winning a few small battles at work, or at least an acknowledgement that the situation has not been handled well.
3. Getting my eyebrows done for the first time in a few weeks with a free pass.
4. Realizing I could deposit a check into my Provident account at any time using their ATM and doing so.
5. Really productive late night meeting.
6. Finishing up putting the rest of prints and posters and such into the Ikea frames purchased a couple weeks ago and deciding that none of them really needed to have the mat recut.

A year ago today.

11/28/11

1. Being able to drop off a meeting a bit early after my part was done.
2. Ran my 9th St. errands (cobbler, library).
3. MB coming over all the way to Hoboken to hang out!
4. Having plenty of food on hand (red duck curry from my mom) to feed myself, EN, and MB.
5. Going out for delicious ice cream at Cold Stone after discovering we wouldn't be able to go see the Breaking Dawn Part I because the theater didn't have 10pm showings anymore after the first week.
6. Having a bit of a girls' sleepover on our place, chatting even as Dan watched his football game.

A year ago today.

11/27/11

1. Dad touching up the paint jobs on the shelves while I was out.
2. Mom offering me cash for Coach outlet store credit that I had with the option to get this beautiful large purple crossbody/shoulder convertible bag if I decided I did want that instead.
3. Bringing home enough food for meals for the next few days.
4. Fitting everything I wanted to bring back into Dan's car, including both shelves and a ladder.
5. Figuring out a way to get the lampshade up on the ceiling fan fixture even though it didn't quite work as a tutorial I found online said it would.
6. Dan reminding me about catching Once Upon a Time.

A year ago today.

11/26/11

1. Sleeping in.
2. Dad having all these supplies to build the shelves I had in mind for putting over the heaters, allowing me to return $60 of supplies back to Lowe's.
3. Dad being pretty patient in giving up most of his day to help me build and paint those shelves.
4. Dad and my aunt coming out to help me with the balloon lamp.
5. Stains on mom's jacket from glue mixture coming out with water.
6. Making salsa and guacamole with my mom and sister.

A year ago today.

11/25/11

1. My mom telling me a lot more of her family's history and her stories from growing up than I had heard before.
2. Getting sunshine outside on the balmy day while watching my sister play tennis.
3. Getting my mom and sister to agree to a few of more points after I was a bit offended by her tennis coach writing off CrossFit as the worst thing ever.
4. Finding two drum lamp shades at Marshall's for pretty cheap.
5. Managing to make it to the diner in the end, though I took a few turns and was lost for half an hour.
6. Seeing SR at the diner and hanging out with her, Dan, RC, and some of RC's cousins.

A year ago today.