what's that smell

There is a particular, slightly funky smell when a dog chews on rawhide for a while. It's not really a good or bad smell, but I like it, because it means my dog is happy.

days like this

Even on tough days, there can be good moments.

Moment #1: I decided to sit in the Legal building today, and my wonderful officemate, whom I see far less than I used to, had brought me three bags of my beloved gummy candy, which her cousin had tracked down and carried back from Germany for me.

Moment #2: our bagpipe teacher was in a charitable mood today, and went very light on his critiques, which was good, because I was woefully unprepared and also just didn't feel up to a tough lesson.

stay at home

I love having a job where I have the ability to work from home if I don't feel like wearing real pants and makeup. Some days, I just want to get my work done and VC into meetings without giving up my pajama pants.

grand opening

Just found out that the new cafe in my building is opening in Thursday, just in time to save me from walking to other cafes during rainy season! This also means that I'll probably see my team more, since everyone will converge on my building for lunch.

what's for dinner

Okay, I keep posting about our new weekly steak night, but seriously, it's amazing, especially since I'm not eating much red meat these days (so it's a treat), and it is still a pretty low calorie meal (so I don't feel like I'm wrecking my weight loss plan to indulge).

It was even better tonight with some of my sister's sweet potato casserole as dessert.

repeat

Today was a quiet day at home, spent enjoying things that have improved with age. I ate leftovers, caught up with a couple of friends from high school and college, and walked my senior citizen dog. This is what Saturdays should be like.

sweet

Today, my sister came home from work and specially made a second batch of her top notch bourbon sweet potato souffle for me to take home, because we ate all of the first batch last night.

She also scrounged up her gym pass so I could go work off some of my delicious guilt from last night and stay for dinner (crabs!) tonight.

She's pretty awesome.

Also, I got to take home some of my brother-in-law's amazing prime rib, and my mom brought me a doggie bag of some of her Chinese cooking (separate from the Peking duck she brought as an appetizer).

If I'm going to break my calorie goals, then let it be on these kinds of things.

meta thanks

Yes, I am thankful for the things I should be thankful for: friends and family, health, shelter, food, work, a great boyfriend, clean water, blue skies and red trees, and living a life that generally falls somewhere between plentiful and over-abundant.

But I'm also thankful for being more aware of these bounties, both big and small. Today, I'm thankful for being thankful.

turkey day

On a walk early this afternoon, I saw: a beaming older couple on a tandem bike, a beautiful vintage car, a mailbox that looked like a Dalmatian, and impossibly red trees in front of a perfect blue sky.

more thanks

I wrapped up my work by 3:30, got to the gym, went to the grocery store (the high price of groceries at Whole Foods used to shock me, but now I'm just glad that I live somewhere that has so much food available and that I have the resources to buy it and not mind the price), bought stuff to make mashed potatoes (and also a couple of irresistible cheeses), and came home to an empty house. I love living with Boyfriend, but I also love having some time to myself.

Also, I think sneaking some cauliflower into the mashed potatoes is actually going to work out. It will taste fine and save some calories.

Speaking of calories, after spending the last twelve weeks counting calories, I'm looking forward to eating with joyful abandon tomorrow.

sushi

It's sushi day at my cafe at work, and when the library truck came, the awesome guy who runs the mobile library program had set aside a copy of Jiro Dreams of Sushi for me!

aww thanks

Our annual performance review cycle is finished, and I just read all of the peer reviews I received, and am glad that the reviews were positive. I always worry about being good enough and doing better, especially since switching teams and diving into the deep end of new issues, so it's really reassuring to read other people's positive reviews that say that my hard work is actually paying off.

highlights

One of the great things about reading books on Kindle is that you can highlight the best lines or bits of information in each book, and you can look at all of your favorite quotes from every Kindle book you've ever read online or in a separate document on Kindle. I highlight compulsively, but only remember to go back and look at my highlighted quotes every few months, and I can see what kinds of things I was thinking about based on what I was highlighting.

here comes the rain

Safe and dry in my pajamas, listening to the rain outside and hoping it turns all the grassy hillsides green again soon.

not so rainy

After a grey morning, the skies are blue and the sun is out, but I'm not complaining. Boyfriend got steak for our dinner, and is testing a recipe to make caramel pecan sticky buns for tomorrow (after we spent the last couple of weeks talking about how good the one we got at Baker and Banker was), so I think I might be a good girl and go to the gym, the bank, and Target, so I can deserve all this deliciousness.

weekend plans

Rainy weather with no obligations means I have a good excuse to spend most of the weekend reading in bed. My friends in Zurich are celebrating Thanksgiving early, so I can even say I hung out with friends over Google Hangouts. It was good to see them.

drought over

I usually give stars to about 1/6 of the books I read, but almost four months (and nearly 50 books) passed without a starred book. I enjoyed all that reading, but sometimes I want something that moves me enough to warrant a star. The wait is over. My last book got a star, and I'm 73% through a book that I suspect will receive one, as well.

happy reunion

My car is back! It smells right, it sounds right, it brakes and accelerates right, the locks and windows are automatic, and it has a built in GPS and garage door opener, unlike the rental car. So good to be back in my normal car, which I never appreciated enough on a daily basis.

Also, they cleaned it more thoroughly than it has ever been cleaned since I bought it. They cleaned the hubcaps and put something shiny on the tires. And they gave me gift cards for coffee and gas to thank me for using their services.

Welcome home, Prius, I missed you!

bookish

One unanticipated benefit of tracking all of the books I read and the dates I finish reading them is that I can look back at the past couple of years and see what I was reading at this time each year. It reminds me of what was going on at the time and I am always surprised at how quickly time (and books) can fly.

cookie monster

I've generally been quite good about eating healthier foods in reasonable quantities lately, but the toffee chocolate chip cookies they had at lunch yesterday were so good that I had to eat four, and avoided eating ten only through exercising monumental self restraint.

prius

The two days that I have appreciated my car the most were the day I bought it (after months of waiting) and today (when I got behind the wheel of the loud, smelly, unfamiliar rental car I'm using while they fix my rear bumper).

we were young

Look how young my dog was in 2003!

what's for dinner

It's our second weekly steak night. Ah...

ancient history

There's so much fun to be had from digging through old photos and going through the same series of thoughts: Look how young we were! What was I wearing? Those were such good times! This one is from 2000, my first New Year's Eve in New York. It's fun to think that the pictures we're taking now will one day be a window back into the good old days, as well.

007

Google bought out an entire cineplex for the whole day today and gave us tickets to see the new Bond movie,a day ahead of the US release. I went with some of the engineers I work with (there's nothing quite like listening to a theater full of engineers scoffing at faux engineering in a movie), and ate a box of Milk Duds for lunch.

relief

I am so relieved that Obama won the election. I am a cynic and a pessimist when it comes to politics (especially after 2000 and 2004 broke my naive heart twice in a row), but at least we have four more years under someone I think shares the same social ideals and priorities as I do. Even if he can't make them happen, at least I feel confident that he won't be working against them. There's also the added bonus of maintaining dignity in front of the rest of the world.