Tuesday, July 9 2019

Dear Journal,

Yesterday was a pretty good day. It was Rodney's actual birthday, so I worked from home in the morning, then took the family out to Ian's Pizza for lunch. We walked around the square a bit, then Marissa and Rodney dropped me off at work and went to the zoo. Apparently Rodney is really into the monkeys now, as well as yelling "WAKE UP" at all the animals that were sleeping. When I got home from work, he showed me some new toys they opened together, then we crashed on the couch a bit and watched an episode of Blippi. There's a new Blippi episode out where he learns to skateboard with Shaun White, and like most Blippi episodes that over-feature a celebrity, the whole thing is very uncomfortable and I recommend you watch it. After eating some dinner, we walked to the Biergarten and had a drink while Rod played in the sandbox. Things got a little tense when another kid commandeered Rodney's newly gifted skid steer we brought from home to test drive in the sandbox. Emotions ran hot, but we settled on letting him take home one of Rodney's plastic hard hats. That seemed to smooth things over.

After putting Rodney to bed, I had a bunch of chores to catch up on, and I had a time lapse to make for Marissa. I still feel like I'm catching up on things after getting ready for the party. The routine is settling back in, but I'm still not mentally back yet, and I'm having a hard time focusing on things. The last thing we did before going to bed was watch three episodes of Stranger Things. I know I was raving about how this season was the best, but it took a really weird turn. I don't think this counts as a spoiler, but the writers thought it would be a good idea to wedge a plot line into the middle of things that can only be described as a "kid-friendly Austin Powers". Let's say this, how about a week from today, I call a "weapons free" on the Stranger Things spoilers and go into detail. Marissa and I spent at least a good half hour talking about it and I'm dying to share, so consider this your warning, reader.

So what else is going on… I've got work on my mind. Next week, our summer interns are joining my team and I'm in charge of handing out work to them. I set up all the tasks about a month and a half ago and was feeling pretty good about it, but after reviewing everything yesterday, it's clear to me that it's not enough to fill seven weeks. I'm hoping I can get some time today to focus on padding it - padding it with meaningful work, of course.

So today is Tuesday, and normally what I do on Tuesday night is find a new vegetarian recipe to enjoy with our good friends on Wednesday night at Madison's concert on the square. I haven't made up my mind yet, so I was hoping to find a free twenty minutes to shop around for a recipe. I'd love to do vegetarian buddha bowls, but honestly my sticky rice skills are pretty abysmal, and sticky rice is kind of the star of the show with that one.

Let's pick a theme for this hot, sunny Tuesday. I'm going to go with "back on track". I'm going to get to work, put some Frank Ocean on, and just crush it until lunch. Maybe I'll take a quick walk to grab a bite to eat, then I'll sit somewhere and pick a recipe to cook tonight. I'm all caught up on chores, so we're good on that front, but after throwing a big party our kitchen could use some love, so I might go above and beyond tonight.

Here's to Tuesday. Hope we all get back on track today.