phyncke

I am done for the week here - we had a staff lunch today - which was nice - we all ate lunch together on Zoom for the one year anniversary of work from home and had a few laughs and then we were dismissed for the week. We have tomorrow off for Spring Holiday and they gave us this afternoon as a freebie. So nice long weekend here. Yay. I am ready for the weekend. It looks like we will be going back to the office in the Fall in some manner. Not sure how it will look - maybe part time or something. That is what our VP said today. Will see what that means.

I think I am going to Santa Cruz this weekend - on Saturday - just to look around and get some oceanside time. I really like it there and it is very peaceful on the cliffs by the water there. I love looking at the waves crashing on the rocks there. The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend so will be great. We go to Woodstock Pizza for a meal and the bookstore there is amazing. Nice big independent bookstore. They have a great bakery too. We make a few stops there.

So the realtor showed the house today to a few people - mostly investor types. Not very nice people. One guy wanted to destroy our lovely yard and pave it over for parking. That kind of thing. My neighbor, B*** - is calling the rental board to see what our rights are. Here we go again. I hope this guy did not get it. Not a nice guy and I don't see him appreciating the charms of our house. Anyhoo. That happened today. Not good.

I figured out what to do about the car and will be getting a new transmission. It is lots of money but I have it covered. It is much less than a new car and there are many reasons why I cannot afford a new car or a car payment right now. So that is what I am doing. Not going into the ins and outs of the decisions but I feel better now that I know what I am doing on that. Just have to plan it all and it is easier to get this done with the work from home thing. More able to leave the car for some days in the shop.

OK. That is about it for me. I am glad it is my weekend now. Hope you are doing well where you are. Cheers to you!

Hello. Very busy time in the work life lately. Lots of things happening there - events and projects culminating to a mid-April crescendo. I just want to make it through til then. Then I will be able to breathe. I can do it. I think I can. I think I can. It will all work out. I have an event next week and the week after. I will have projects to do but those seem manageable.

Anyway - I am going to Santa Cruz tomorrow for a day trip. Leaving early in the morning to catch brunch at this place Zachary's. Yum-delicious. My favorite thing is the sour dough pancakes. Oh la la. So good. Then we will go to the beach and look at the water and hang out.

I am deep into this series of books by Heather Graham on audible - this paranormal mystery series - Krewe of Hunters - all the FBI agents can sense ghosts - kind of cool. There are many of these books in the series so it is very fun working through them. I love audibles too - especially when there is a good narrator who does character voices. Very fun.

I have been learning new recipes and cooking soups lately. That is the latest thing I have added to my repertoire. The first soup I tried was chicken noodle soup and that worked well - and then aglarien1 gave me her super recipe for a cabbage beef soup that is super delicious too. I really like having servings of soup in the freezer and fridge. It is a nice ready made meal and home made soup tastes way better than canned. I want to try and make meatball soup and soup with sausage and pasta. So that will be fun. Lots of soups to try. And here soup is good year round as we have cold nights all year. So boom!

So there - that is an update of sorts. Hope all is well with you in your part of the world. Take care of you and be well!

PS - I saw a really good movie last night - Eye in the Sky about decision making and drone warfare in the fight against terrorists. It was very tense and interesting and relevant to today's political, military situation. Really good movie. Highly recommend. Good performances all around and it was Alan Rickman's last film. Helen Mirren was riveting.

I have made some good progress thanks to stormy weather and football playoffs. Those two things make the perfect conditions for me to write my Slashy Valentine. The weather makes me less inclined to go out and the playoffs provide me with the crowd cheering background noise I need to feel spurred on in my progress. Silly but it totally works for me. I am adjusting my word meter as I have exceeded my first estimated word count on the story.

1801 / 2400 words. 75% done!

So that is all cool. I am not done but my characters have touched and there is attaraction. Boom. I can work with this.

I think I am going to Santa Cruz tomorrow - weather permitting - and the forecast indicates a nice day so that will probably happen so I will be able to write tomorrow night. I hope to get to the 2k count tomorrow night and into the home stretch by mid-week.

I can do this. Feel free to comment in with your progress or support. I will reply! Or if you are done - let me know that too.

Cheers to you and US folks - long weekend!

And then comes Monday. I really hate Monday.

I saw a pretty good movie this weekend - The Maze Runner. A dystopian teen thing based on the book by James Dashner. It was kind of an edge of the seat film - lots of gasping and chair grasping and OMGing in this one. Hybrid organic and bio-mechanical creepy creatures and an ending that leaves it hanging for a sequel. It interests me enough that I loaded the book onto my kindle and into my audible account. I want to read the original and see how it compares to the movie. I love the guy who played Thomas and all of the guys in the Glade group and the girl - Theresa was good too. It has an apocalyptic feel to it and definitely grabbed my interest.

I went down to Santa Cruz today to take my friend's kiddo back to college for his sophomore year at college. That was fun and my friend J*** had a few crying jags there. That was to be expected - I was support system 101 and did the friend thing. I was happy for him being back at school - he needs that focus. He has a cool on campus apartment with a bunch of new people yet right near his roommate from last year so it is all good.

I have a really busy month coming up at work. Lots of projects and things to do. Have to pull it all together and get it all organized. I do better when I am busy so that is good for me. I like October too. It is my birthday - coming up on the 8th - woot. So yay!

That is all I have on this end. No, I have not started writing yet but it is in my mind. So I am thinking about writing. That is something!

Tada!

It is Fall. This is my favorite season of the year. Happy Fall everyone!

This weekend was pretty busy and lots doing. We (my friends and I) had to take J's son NP to college yesterday down in Santa Cruz. He is starting as a first year student at UC Santa Cruz. All sorts of emotions around this. Excitement for him, pride at his accomplishment, sadness because we are going to miss him. All that stuff. We had to leave pretty early as he had a 9:30 am move in appointment and it takes 1.5 hours to get to SC from Oakland. We made good time and skipped out caffeination stop. It was a lot of fun doing the move in thing there. Lots of cheering from the upper class students who staffed move in day and it all went pretty smoothly. NP did not have a huge amount of stuff and we only had to move it up one flight of stairs. He and I ended up doing it as J went to get his dorm fridge at the bookstore. We got the room set up in about 10 mins and let J set up the bed. I think that is something a Mom should do for the kiddo. The only snafoo was that NP forgot his monitor power cords so we had to run around Santa Cruz to buy those and that kept us there for a while. We would have been out of there at 11:30 am had it not been for the cords. We did stop at CVS and picked up some dorm room provisions - chips, popcorn, soda, laundry soap and other things he might need. We dropped that off, hugs all around and booked it out of there. We stopped at a great brunch place on the way back and then drove through a rain storm back to the Bay Area. J had a few crying jags on the way back.

This is going to be hard for J to deal with. I spent today keeping her busy so she would not dwell on her empty nest. We did some shopping, hiked, got our favorite coffees and just kept busy. I think I will need to keep her busy for some time. NP is her only child and I think this is going to surely be hard on her. We are going to do work outs during the week and activities on the weekend. Busy is good.

In other news -

I saw a great movie this weekend "Prisoners" with Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman and a great supporting cast. The overall story is about child abduction and the desperate investigation and recovery of the children. Very tense, intense and terrifying movie. Strong performances by all in the cast and really a horrifying look at serial crimes. I am not a parent so it might have been easier for me to watch but I imagine this would be hard to watch if you have children. The fear factor is palpable. This movie solidified my admiration for Jake Gylenhaal as an actor. Very strong performance by him. He is how you would like every cop to be - determined and dedicated.

So that is all I have. Hope you are well there and enjoying life. Things are good here. Back to work tomorrow. La.


by yueshi at mondlichtung - livejournal.com