Thursday, June 17 2021

2019-05-28 Tuesday

Good Morning Journal!

I had a lovely extended Memorial day weekend. Yesterday after running errands and picking up lunch from Portillo's, I started smoking the salmon in the afternoon, then just hung out outside until it was finished. It rained a bit, but not too much to sit outside and even play some baseball with Rod. The salmon was finished right around dinner time. This batch turned out pretty good - some of the larger cutlets could have been done a bit longer I think, but there were plenty of choice pieces that were practically falling out of their skin. I served it on some toasted sourdough with spicy mustard, and tossed a Caesar salad on the side.

I put Rod to bed. This was the first time in a while he's gone to bed early enough to hear a story, so we read What Pet Should I get?. Then I cleaned the kitchen while Marissa painted. This was my first evening free of on-call duty, so I enjoyed quite a few beers and a big joint. I'm not going to lie to you journal, it felt so nice to unplug without worrying about getting paged. Perhaps I went a little hard at the beer (or the port wine), I've got a touch of a stomach ache this morning, but nothing a few cups of coffee can't make go away.

This week, two of our work interns are starting. For the first half of the quarter, they're going to be working on the secure team, but afterwards they'll come to our team and I'm basically their point person. This will be very different kind of work for me, and I'm looking forward to it. Although I'm not feeling very social today. I'll have to do what I can with all that Stella Artois sloshing around in my stomache - ugh.

This week, at least I'm not on call. So let's be sure to take a lot of time for solitude to balance out how social I'll have to be. Let's have a Tuesday!

2019-05-29 Wednesday

Good Morning Journal!

It's a beautiful Wednesday morning. I know we had a power outage this morning because Marissa and I awoke to the beautiful jingle our router place when it gets rebooted. I was confused the first time it happened, but this spring has had quite a few, so I pretty much know how to put the house back in order, and I usually finish before the coffee is done.

Yesterday was a fine day. Marissa and I had a pretty heated argument at Hy-Vee. It took a while to unpack, but I think we finally got there, and in the meantime I agreed to do some research about how to better curb my anger. I had a moment of clarity and realized that none of our tactics have worked so far because, in the heat of an argument, she's the last person I want to hear those from. So I'm hoping I can find something more helpful than "count to 10" or what have you. Also as part of the argument, we talked about why I get so riled up when someone in the family wants to do their own thing for dinner. I still don't know why, but I'm learning that it's important to me and I suck at communicating that.

But yesterday wasn't all gloom and arguments, I stopped by Heath's house to drop off the salmon I smoked for him and he invited me in for a beer. Heath and Jess are so happy right now, it's making me excited to have another baby. At first I was worried about overstaying my welcome, but it was evident they have missed out on talking to an adult for a while, so the way I see it, I was obliging them. Also, Heath gave me his old mountain bike to take home. It needs a minor repair, but I just might be able to have that thing ready for grocery runs very soon.

Today should be pretty kicked back. I'm working from home all day with the Rodman. Marissa has a dog thing in the morning, then she's getting her hair colored this afternoon. I'm planning on taking Rod to Hy-Vee or to Jenny St. to pick up stuff to make French scallops in a mignonette sauce.

In between working on the config service ADR, I'm going to start doing anger research. I'll report back what I find. This Wednesday, let's have courage and work ethic. Put the work in and ask tough questions.

2019-05-30 Thursday

Good Morning Journal!

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Those scallops in white wine sauce were reasonably easy to do, but I kind of soured the moment when I lost my temper when Marissa left the gate open and the dogs slipped out. So that was the first entry in this new anger journal that I'm keeping. Whenever I have an outburst, I'm just supposed to record the details and thoughts going through my head, and observe them later to see if there is a consistent pattern that triggers me. I just had another small outburst this morning, so I don't think I'll have any problem collecting data. It's actually kind of exciting. I've had a temper for as long as I can remember, but I don't know how to deal with it, let alone what's the source of it. Truth be told, I think I just get angry when things aren't where they should be, or if there's something in my way. But we'll see, that certainly doesn't completely account for some arguments I've had with Marissa just sitting in the car or going for walks.

Tonight I have Kids Code, then afterwards the volunteers are getting drinks at Dexter's, so it should be a pretty fun evening. And I know I was planning on doing some more French cooking for Friday night, but now I decided I really want sfincione. After how much I've talked that recipe up to people, it never hurts to practice it.

Alright - let's have a Thursday.