Songs of the Month, er, Moment

By popular demand of my one blog reader, DJ Melon, here's a full list of all "Songs of the Month" I've had on this blog. There are only 7. Clearly, I did not do this every month. I've also brought it back (lookit the sidebar -->) as "Songs of the Moment", since that's more accurate.

• Hey Mama by Mat Kearney
• Nothing by The Script
• Just Say Yes by Snow Patrol
• You and I by Ingrid Michaelson
• Under Control by Parachute
• Mad by Ne-Yo
• New Soul by Yael Naim

BFF

This is why you're my best friend.
Thanks melon.

Oops

I just published a bunch of old drafts, but didn't realize Blogger uses the publish time stamp vs. the original draft time stamp. My bad!

Home & Away

At the beginning of this year, each member of my team had to state one thing they were going to do for work-life balance. Mine was to go on vacation -- a lot! With over 15 days of vacation (that's 15 work days) and having only taken one real vacation in the last 2.5 years, it was time to play hard. I set aside a nice chunk of change and started taking advantage of any days Helen Melon was free. Unfortunately that only meant weekends. But that's just as good; sometimes (actually, most of the time), vacations are 2x the work with to prep before and follow-up after.

So where have I been going? Nowhere too far actually, but still tons of fun. Here's a recap:

• Tahoe
• Maui and Oahu
• Tahoe
• Vegas
• Vegas (again)
• Seattle
• Florida, Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Grand Turk, back to Florida (it was a cruise ya?)
• Pismo
• Chicago
• NYC!
• Yosemite
• LA
• Vegas (yes, again)

After 5 consecutive weekends of living life, it feels so good to be home. Yet somehow I still manage to have over 16 days of vacation now... how did that happen? I'm pretty much out of pocket til March, but anyone down for a trip then? I'll go anywhere!

Eating Dinner

I eat dinner at work 3-4 times per week. It's a wonderful luxury, no doubt. But this week I have not eaten dinner at work once, and let me tell ya, that is an even more wonderful luxury. That means I have been leaving the building before 6:30pm. (Though sometimes it means I'm leaving the building after 8pm and didn't grab dinner, but that's not what I'm talking about here!). Hooray for work-life balance! Here's what I had and/or cooked (yes, I cooked!):

Mon: Shrimp cooked in leftover Craw Station and bread (there were some consequences with this one...)

Tue: Bun Mee rice bowl with Jo

Wed: Grilled shrimp marinated in lime and market spices, fresh english peas with scallions, and toasted bread

Thu: Sweet mustard brussel sprouts, cheesy garlic bread (one sourdough baguette goes a long way), and some parmesan

Fri: mama Choi's cookin'

Joey went rogue

Email from mom:
Hi!, Sarah
How are you?

That's a what happen to "Joey"
Yesterday morning, Sam took Joey out before he go to work (about 6:45 a.m.).
Sam release Joey, and Joey disappear from Sam, Sam couldn't find him, Sam lost Joey!!

Whole family (Dad, I, Sam) waiting for Joey to come back home.
Finally, Sam got a phone call from someone 9p.m., he saw Joey at park, contact "Shelter"
Joey stay at "Shelter" that time.
Sam look at web site, find Joey's picture there, he show to me Joey's picture.

I don't know about "Joey"!!!!

Have a nice this afternoon.

Love,
Mom

Picture from SFACC lost & found site:

Recipe for a GREAT day

Ingredients:

• 10am wake up time after a fun night in a mansion
• 10-minute quick jog on a treadmill... IN MY ROOM
• 1 turkey meatloaf sandwich and 1 ice coffee at Dean & Delucca
• 1 stunning view of a mountain vineyard
• 8 teammates doing "team building activities" via wine tour, cheese... and more wine
• 4 Bouchon hazelnut macarons, 4 chocolate almond croissants and 1 coffee cake
• 3 great friends and 1 ticket to The Script and Andrew Allen at the Warfield
• 1 corned beef sandwich at Tommy's Joint
• 0 days taken off of work ;)

Directions:

• Consume each ingredient in order, and never take any of them for granted