1/24/12

1. Lunch with AQ, AJ, EM, ST, and ES.
2. An all-hands meeting ending 30 minutes early.
3. Activating various new credit/bank cards sent to me in the mail and figuring out which had rewards bonuses in certain categories.
4. Talking the guard at the library into letting me run in to return books and pick up a book on hold even though they were closing in 2 minutes (actually, 4 minutes, and I was out of there within 3 minutes but they'd already locked the front door and I had to go out a back way. Strict!).
5. Really enjoying the food (empanada and croquette appetizers, mussels, steak) and non-work related conversations at Favela Cubana.
6. Finally getting my We Love Colors order of gray tights delivered.

A year ago today.

1/23/12

1. Managing to fit in a new wide-mouthed bowl and a package of noodles my mom had given me into my backpack.
2. Getting to the train station in plenty of time for the 7:33 express train.
3. A couple meetings in the afternoon getting canceled and bringing an end to a very meeting-heavy day.
4. Finally figuring out why certain updates I'd requested weren't going through (I'd messed up the IDs somehow) and fixing that, plus finally finishing up submitting the new queries I wanted as well.
5. Not getting very wet in the drizzle on the way home.
6. Choosing to stay home and watch Jeopardy from the DVR with Dan instead of going to the gym.

A year ago today.

1/22/12

1. Surprisingly quick trip into Manhattan by car.
2. Finding a couple heretofore unknown common ground topics with Dan's family members, like lack of interest in sports other than the Olympics and Lotta Jansdotter's designs and style.
3. Getting a ride from PB and CS to Penn Station.
4. Shrimp and fish for a Chinese New Year dinner with my parents and aunt/uncle.
5. My mom letting me have the TV to watch Once Upon a Time and Downton Abbey.
6. Starting and finishing Started Early, Took My Dog.

A year ago today.

1/21/12

1. Waking up to pretty white snow falling.
2. Finally figuring out a way to make quesadillas in the frying pan without setting off the alarm.
3. Organizing our boxes of physical photos a little and clearing up more shelf space as result.
4. Dusting and vacuuming the apartment thoroughly.
5. Dan making lentils for dinner.
6. Finishing up the photobook for the Caribbean cruise trip and placing an order on blurb for that along with honeymoon and bachelorette party books.

A year ago today.

1/20/12

1. Surprisingly productive meeting to work on collecting data for a client event.
2. Afternoon free to focus on getting some updates submitted in bulk.
3. Skype meeting with Kelly to go over wedding album options! She's the best, I love talking to her.
4. Kelly recommending blurb as the best online photobook company to use, so along with my boss' boss recommendation of blurb earlier in the week as well, I feel confident in my choice to go with them as well.
5. Finding out great news for a friend through Pinterest stalking.
6. AS and JW reminding me to shut down my computer and leave the office before all the electricity was shut down.

A year ago today.

1/19/12

1. Lunch in Chelsea with EM.
2. Reclaiming the hour I had set aside for office hours since no one came.
3. Chair massage with AS.
4. Grabbing dinner with EM and ST at the office.
5. Getting home and asking Dan to DVR Project Runway in time to only miss the first few minutes.
6. Reading Spindle's End, haven't had a novel in awhile.

A year ago today.

1/18/12

1. Making it in time to grab breakfast.
2. Really lively and engaging instructor for the CPR class.
3. Various meetings got canceled or ended early so I had time to clear out my email.
4. Finding several more books ready for me at the library than I'd expected.
5. Working on shoulder presses (upper body strength!) at the gym.
6. Cooking up all the chicken to use in making quesadillas over the next few days.

A year ago today.

1/17/12

1. It had looked to be a full-meeting day but lots of them got canceled.
2. Finding someone to buy the gelato class Groupon off of me after AB and I couldn't find a time that work for both of us before it expired.
3. Cashier at Gap actually being really patient about having to re-do a return because it was 3 items on two different receipts. Helped me get an extra $15 back to do it the right way.
4. Remembering to stop in at Blick to get some tape supplies for frames and sewing patterns.
5. Having pork chops as leftovers to be able to heat up quickly and get some food in when I got home ravenous.
6. Watching some mindless TV (a Criminal Minds episode I actually hadn't seen before!)

A year ago today.

1/16/12

1. Watching Once Upon a Time and Downton Abbey off the DVR. 
2. Figuring out how to set a custom white balance and higher exposure on my camera.
3. Going for a run to get some fresh air and sunshine.
4. Finding that the drycleaner's that we still have some Groupon credit with was open today, so could drop off a load of towels and sheets.
5. Crunchy baked pork chops coming out quite well, mostly due to having mustard on hand to make a really sticky egg wash and having proper tongs to grasp the chops with.
6. Going to barbell class and succeeding at going 50 ft. while carrying 185lb. zurcher! I failed to even pick it up the first couple times so to be able to carry it that difference was awesome.

A year ago today.

1/15/12

1. Sleeping in after being up so late the night before.
2. Finding out my mom bought me another down vest, this one in an apple green color.
3. Opening a couple windows in time to not set off the smoke alarm while making myself a big breakfast with home fries and chorizo.
4. Re-organizing and consolidating the pantry resulting in more space and discovering an extra box of baking soda when I thought that we had run out.
5. Remembering that we have a strainer and using it to strain off the gunk at the surface when making pork stock, which really has an effect! The resulting liquid is mostly a milky color, rather than studded with brown gunk.
6. Dan driving us (to avoid cold) to an AMC theater (to use various gift cards and such we've had for a long time) to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and rather enjoying myself, though the more I think about it afterwards the more plot holes I see to poke.

A year ago today.

1/14/12

1. Dan going out grocery shopping and picking up two different kinds of pretzels: dark chocolate covered and yogurt covered.
2. Dan making a soup (chicken, sweet potato, apple) for dinner and feeling comfortable enough to deviate from the recipe in several ways.
3. Finishing up the bachelorette party photobook.
4. Starting and finishing the honeymoon photobook!
5. Organizing the various ephemera for the wedding and honeymoon scrapbook and discovering an awesome idea of saving the wedding cards by binding them into a book.
6. Staying up late until Dan came home after having gone out that night.

A year ago today.

1/13/12

1. Meeting with SS in the morning and working steadily in the afternoon to organize what remains of the feature flag updates.
2. Lunch with AJ.
3. Reading my favorite parts (bookmarked on my Kindle) of Before I Fall several times over.
4. Getting dinner from the Taco Truck and remembering to bring a drink from the office.
5. Uninstalling a few programs from my laptop and improving the performance quite a bit. It had been getting to the point of being painfully slow lately.
6. Downloading the blurb.com photobook software and starting work on photos from the bachelorette party.

A year ago today.

1/12/12

1. Making it in on time to a 10:30 meeting.
2. Hearing desirable responses from a meeting we went into where some potential lack of functionality seems to be acceptable.
3. Fun meeting as always with SN. He's hilarious and honest.
4. Starting a re-read of Before I Fall (checked out from the library).
5. Grabbing dinner at the office.
6. Gorgeous gown by Austin on tonight's Project Runway episode! This season actually doesn't suck so far, not focusing on made up "drama" between contestants and just showcasing their work and talent.

A year ago today.

1/11/12

1. Making myself breakfast in the morning since I was running too late to make it in time for breakfast at work.
2. Missing the hullabaloo around the building getting evacuated in the morning.
3. Massage with AS after having met my gym attendance goal last week.
4. Getting a burger and chocolate milk for lunch.
5. Free afternoon to work steadily on putting together the feature list.
6. Going to barbell class tonight and lifting more than my own bodyweight!

A year ago today.

1/10/12

1. Pulling on my black boots to go with my mostly black outfit today (black Madewell jeans, black-and-red vintage top)
2. Reading When Parents Text on the train and chuckling quite a bit.
3. Lunch with MG, AJ, and EM.
4. Making it to an afternoon office hours meeting and getting validation from BG and JB that the side I came down on on certain questions was what they thought clients would want.
5. Beef stew over quinoa for dinner.
6. Watching Downton Abbey season 2 premiere on DVR. So good!!

A year ago today.

1/9/12

1. Trying my new Flexee shapewear leotard thing and having it stay in place throughout the day. Also kept me quite warm.
2. Powering through cleaning up some documentation on reporting with a few others (the meeting was scheduled from half hour; we needed 2 hours to get it done).
3. Dan saving me at least one more Tim Tam.
4. Getting blurb.com paper samples in the mail.
5. Going to a barbell class and pairing up with A, who was encouraging and motivating.
6. Making an ordered list of wedding blog posts to write.

A year ago today.

1/8/12

1. Making egg sandwiches with bacon, wilted sandwiches, and mozzarella on English muffins for breakfast.
2. Reading Liesl & Po in the morning.
3. Catching up on my "Watch later" YouTube playlists and "to watch" bookmarks while Dan was out in the afternoon.
4. Working on a couple vintage dresses that needed repairs.
5. Dan making beef stew for dinner.
6. Having the DVR to be able to watch the return of Once Upon a Time without commercials.

A year ago today.

1/7/12

1. Getting to the gym and one of the coaches staying with me to cheer me through finishing the workout even though I was the last one to finish.
2. Sunny day, hopefully generated some vitamin D when going to/from the gym.
3. Dan picking up the new DVR box (trial for next 3 months) and going grocery shopping as well.
4. Cider-braised pork chops coming out well again despite me forgetting to salt and pepper the pork chops before searing this time.
5. Sorting out what I want to do with my various miles and points stored up so far and buying tickets to see AL in New Orleans!
6. Editing the photos from my bachelorette party in preparation for making a photobook.

A year ago today.

1/6/12

1. Putting together an outfit with my blue velvet blazer and brown dress/leggings/boots inspired by this outfit. Best outfit yet for this blazer, the proportions worked well with the dress which I've had for awhile now and have found tricky to style with pants/tops.
2. Getting in to work and seeing several emails and instant messages of compliments on a summary I'd written up. Nice to be appreciated like that.
3. Going to see Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk play during lunch!! Sublime.
4. Finally getting a way to pay a colleague that I bought a bike from without having to pay additional fees for a wire transfer.
5. Food and service at Junoon for dinner with MB.
6. Calling EN and catching up with her. It's too bad I won't see her as regularly anymore as last semester, sigh.

A year ago today.

1/5/12

1. Starting The Most Human Human, written by someone I went to high school with (!), and finding it quite interesting and well-written.
2. Grabbing the last couple of pieces of avocado at breakfast.
3. Finding that a late afternoon meeting was canceled so I could go with MB to try to get lottery tickets tonight for Book of Mormon as well.
4. Discovering Kinokuniya's new-to-me location by Bryant Park and enjoyably wandering through its goods and stationery section.
5. Caught up with LW over the phone, keeping her in my thoughts.
6. Discovering that I somehow had enough miles in my United frequent flyer account that I could actually use them to get roundtrip tickets for at least one domestic trip in the next few months.

A year ago today.

1/4/12

1. Remembering to dig out winter gloves and a hat so that I was sufficiently bundled up for the first really cold day (~20F) we've had this winter.
2. Meeting with a visiting director and finding him to be quite sharp, which bodes well for the project he's taking on.
3. Lunch with BB and discussing our travel plans for the year.
4. Getting a really sweet email back from KP about starting work on our wedding album--she wants me help with some business stuff! I'm really flattered by it and glad of the chance to use my work-developed feedback skills outside of work.
5. Good workout at the gym, pulling the weighted sled for 90s was quite hard!
6. Turkey sausage with spinach and mashed potatoes dinner making up a good dinner.

A year ago today.

1/3/12

1. Outfit of white dress with faux camisole, black long cardigan, leggings with new comfy slouchy boot socks, brown boots, and pine cone necklace (Christmas gift from EN!).
2. Discovering a sweater that I'd purchased from the Gap last week in gray being available online for half of what I'd paid and in a bright coral color instead.
3. Lunch with AJ discussing wedding and other matters.
4. Meetings disappearing from my calendar one by one until the whole day was free, so I had time enough to get a good mount of backlog work done but not feel rushed since it was still relatively quiet.
5. Dan being willing to help me figure out some details on our credit cards as I evaluate the rewards programs we currently have even with the Iowa caucus being on.
6. Sending KP an email to get started on our wedding album!

A year ago today.

1/2/12

1. Really sleeping in and waking up feeling well-rested around 11.
2. Recovering from the setback that the Lowe's replacement white fan blades wouldn't fit our ceiling fan by realizing that our current fan blades were reversible and white on the back. Also, Dan for being patient about helping me with this project.
3. Making cider-braised pork chops and having them come out to be incredibly delicious!
4. In general, a pretty productive day in checking off various other projects off my to-do list, like setting up the overhead light in the bedroom with a drum lampshade and a circle of wrapping paper taped up underneath to diffuse the light.
5. Getting to the gym for a barbell class.
6. SP and AL coming out to visit us, along with RC and VL stopping by.

A year ago today.

1/1/12

1. Making banana bread from Cook's Illustrated recipe for my grandma.
2. Fresh and handmade pork/chive/shrimp dumplings in honor of JW and IS visiting.
3. Chatting with my grandma and knitting her socks while the others worked on a puzzle.
4. Taking a quick nap on the couch to deal with my headache.
5. Excellent food at Hudson Clearwater, crispy duck breast and Meyer lemon bar for dessert, to celebrate AJ's engagement. 
6. Rain holding out on my walks to/from PATH station.

A year ago today.