This journal seems to be following the pattern of late that when life is interesting, there's no time to journal it. Though I'm not sure how much of the events of the past week or so make interesting journalling material. Good life doesn't always make good journalling.

I'll try to summarize the high points:

Last Saturday, we saw Daniel's sister, Diana, and her husband, Oren. They are on the long list of people we really ought to see more often. It was nice to get caught up on what they're up to.

Saturday night was my office holiday party. (What holiday, I'm not sure. I meant to look up which saints day fell on the 15th, just so that I could wish people a happy St. _____'s day, but I didn't. Geez, I gotta watch it or my reputation as the geekiest person in tech pubs will be slipping.) Daniel was sleepy and feeling in need of introvert time, so I left him at home and went by myself. (When I explained this to a few co-workers at the party I was proclaimed an exceedingly indulgent spouse. Clearly these folks haven't read Caring for Your Introvert.)

Okay, I just googled and found a page of Catholic Feast days for January. There are many possible choices for Jan. 15, but I think St. Blaithmaic has to win. Allow me to retroactively wish you all a very happy St. Blaithmaic's day.

Anyway, the office party was a hoot - we had free run of the San Jose Tech Museum. I quite enjoyed the internet arm wrestling - particularly getting to watch our Marketing Communications manager whomp a snotty 13-year old kid in Iowa. Yeah.

Sunday, I went to a writers' group meeting. Fun, and as always, inspiring. I'm hoping to finish a story I'm currently working on for the next meeting.

The writers' group meeting was in Santa Cruz. I suffered a bout of minor navigational cluelessness while leaving Santa Cruz, and ended up getting on Highway 1 going North. (Normally, I take Highway 1 South for a short jaunt, and then get on 17 going North.) By the time I figured out my mistake, the sun was setting over the Pacific, and the views were so breathtaking that I decided to just keep going. So, i took the very very scenic route - Santa Cruz to San Jose by way of Half Moon Bay.

It really was worth it for the views.

The second best part was phoning Daniel from Half Moon Bay, at about the time I'd told him to expect me home:
Me: Hi, sweetie. I, uh, took a bit of a wrong turn, and I'm running late.
Daniel: Okay, where are you?
Me: Um.....Half Moon Bay?
Daniel (totally unfazed): Okay, when do you think you'll be home?

Daniel clearly knows my navigational foibles too well by now. (The problem, see, is that I have a decent-ish sense of direction, and I hate to backtrack. So, if I miss my turn, I'm likely to just try to keep going and muddle through. Which mostly works, as long as I don't contrive to put the Santa Cruz mountains between me and where I need to go.)

On Tuesday, I took my car to the Acura dealer on Stevens Creek for routine minor service (change oil, check fluids, check brakes, etc.). They were clueful, efficient, finished the job faster than I expected and charged me less than I expected to pay. I mention this because I've bitched about them in this journal before, but this time they really gave great customer service.

The work week was extremely busy. I've been tweaking my time-management system a bit of late, mostly to good effect. I think I'll discuss that in another post. I had a bunch of meetings where I had the opportunity to either make a good impression or make myself look like an idiot, and I think I mostly made a good impression. I filled out my annual self-assessment form. I think I did okay.

Yesterday I did virtually nothing except sit on my butt and play video games, and boy, did it feel good. One of the problems with being a recovering procrastinator is that it's sometimes hard to tell whether an attack of laziness represents bad habits reasserting themselves, or a genuine need to take a break. Judging by how refreshed and energetic I feel right now, yesterday was clearly the latter.

And that, I think, is my cue to pay some bills and do some laundry. Later!