have the best year of my life

...have been depressing, honestly. I’m not feeling very engaged by my job and I feel like I have little time for fun even though I barely have any official commitments outside of work. All of it’s really driven by my outlook; if I felt more energized I have plenty of time to do things on weekends and evenings. It’s just that I feel so down that I don’t really want to do anything and then…surprise, surprise, I don’t get anything done. I feel kind of stuck in a rut.

Where did the month go? I went to DH’s parents’ house for Christmas and hosted a New Year’s Party, but I don’t remember much else. How can I tell if I’m having my best year ever if I don’t even remember it?

I read a blog post today about journaling, and the concept of a “one sentence journal.” The idea being that you write one sentence (or a few sentences) each day to capture what your life is like at this point in time. I often feel like writing a journal (especially one I post to let my friends see) has to be a whole, coherent, flowing, edited monologue, and this keeps me from writing anything. So, I like the idea of giving myself permission to write a journal in single-sentence, unconnected snippets. I’m planning to do it on my LiveJournal account.

1. Wrote a NaNoWriMo novel and discovered it wasn’t completely garbage, learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Experienced the “zone” when you’re writing and you get sucked into the story, and it just flows along, in the same way it can happen when you’re reading a story.
2. Went on an amazing 6-day camping tour, Mojave Desert, Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon. Had to come home early because DH was sick, but I was about ready to come home anyway.
3. Worked on three ROSES proposals with two big, important PIs, learned a lot about the process and made some good impressions, even if none of the proposals win
4. Got involved in management meetings for the main project I’m doing at work. Even though I’m not experienced enough to have one of the really big roles, I’ll still have some substantial responsibility, which is both fun and good for my career.

I feel like I’m forgetting something, I might have to do an addendum post later.

Sept 12: Flew up to Seattle to see my family. Silly dinner and Rosh Hashanah services with my family and Dave.

Sept 13: Dinner with family and Dave, then hanging out with my much-loved but rarely-seen high school friends.

Sept 14: Puyallup Fair with the high school friends. Went on the big slide and had a humongous hot dog.

Sept 15: Ran a 5k with Dave and Brother #2. Brother got 3rd in his age category and also won a free pair of shoes in the raffle afterward. High school friends came to cheer us on.

Sept 16: Brother #1’s birthday party – laser tag at two locations. I’d never played before, but it was lots of fun.

Sept 17-18: Quality time with Brother #2 while driving his car down to CA. Listened to “The Time Traveler’s Wife” and I loved it!

Sept 20: Angels vs. Mariners game with KT & L, J & R, me and DH. I hadn’t seen those guys in forever! Mariners lost, but it was fun cheering for the visiting team.

Sept 21-22: Yom Kippur services at UCLA. Very spiritual.

Sept 27: Hosted a ROWBOAT (theme: gadgets I rarely use) and even the crockpot stuff turned out pretty well. Got to meet M, a friend of a friend.

Aug 26: Visited DH’s high school friends in Ventura. We went to the beach but I found it too cold to actually get in the water. I got a little low on blood sugar but the friends were very kind in putting together some dinner for me.

Aug 27: Last softball game of the season. Already can’t remember if we won or lost, but I do remember having fun.

Aug 31-Sept 3: T&T wedding stuff. Bridal shower, hanging out at the hotel, and of course, getting smashed at the wedding reception. “I’ll always remember…” The wedding itself was relatively short and very meaningful.

Sept 1-2: Games weekend at J&J’s. I only ended up playing only 2 games the whole time and didn’t get a great night’s sleep on the floor & in the heat. Yummy queso dip for lunch!

Sept 3: Impromptu game night with K&S. Played Star Munchkin; K won but it was a very close game between all 4 players.

Sept 5: Bowling party with the softball team. I played reasonably well (for me) during the first game, and it went downhill from there. Fortunately all the other players on my lane were sucking too.

Sept 6: First football game of the season at Samantha’s place. Yummy buffalo wings and cute kitties…and also the Colts won.

Sept 7: Goodbye party for W, who is moving to D.C. Extremely long wait for service and it turned out to be very expensive, but I got to sit near people I already know and like. Learned a little about Texas: Boone’s Farm and Queso.

Sept 8: Stitch & Bitch at K’s house. I was the only one who showed up, but K had some delicious strawberries and I was surprisingly able to finish knotting my t-shirt quilt.

Aug 11: Fun dinner and movie at home with DH involving champagne.

Aug 13: Softball game. Other team forfeited due to lack of players but we loaned them some players and had a pickup game. I got to be catcher for the other team – which I would not have been allowed to do in an official game. Afterwards, dinner at Rocky Cola Cafe.

Aug 15: Hiking in the hills above Altadena. Ben arrived late so had to run to catch up with us. We didn’t get back until after dark.

Aug 16: DH and I went to Hollywood after work, intending to catch a show involving some band members we work with. Ate at a yummy thai restaurant which gave me indigestion and I had to go home. The way is paved to go back to Hollywood at some point.

Aug 20-23: GN&C conference in Hilton Head. Randomly got upgraded to a huge “party” room. Met some awesome folks from JSC, so now I have someone to hang out with if I’m ever in Houston.

July 28: Ann’s 70th birthday (although she looks at least a decade younger…) with DH. We had a great time trying out some West Coast Swing moves on the dance floor and singing a Karaoke duet of “I’ve Got You Babe.”

Aug 1: We celebrated our third wedding anniversary by going out to dinner and then picking up a new kitten, who we have named GOB (pronounced “Jobe”) after the character in Arrested Development. He tries to be macho, but he’s really just goofy.

Aug 3-6: Brother #1 came to visit. We didn’t do anything more exciting than swimming in our tiny pool and going shopping for shorts, but it was great fun to get the three “kids” together again.

Aug 7: I played in a softball game. I got robbed of a hit by our own base coach calling me out when I was clearly safe, got an official hit, and then hit into the game-ending double. I also made a few errors in fielding. Not a great game for me, but I had a good time socializing with the other players and at least the hot dogs were yummy.

Aug 8: I went on a hike with two coworkers on the Crescenta View Trail in the George Deukmejian Wilderness Park. I hadn’t realized there were such trails so close to home.

Aug 10: Parkour class. I am still sore 3 days later!

I admit that I was a bit nervous going to Ann’s dinner & dancing birthday party – I suspected DH and I would be the youngest folks there by at least 20 years (and more likely 40 years.) Not quite right, but close enough. But I got up the nerve to overcome my fears and ended up having a great time. The wine with dinner probably helped :-)

DH and I tried out some of our WCS moves on the tiny dance floor and later sang a karaoke duet of “I Got You Babe.” All the older couples there fawned over us! They thought we were an adorable young couple and complimented us profusely on our dancing and singing skills. I think we helped remind them of their younger days, and they reminded me that just because someone is getting older doesn’t mean they can’t have fun and go wild with their friends. But of course, Ann is a constant reminder of that. Nobody could really believe that she was turning 70 – she’s so young at heart and she looks much younger, too! I also really enjoyed hanging out with Liza. She has kids my age, but she is so animated and friendly, and she sang a great karaoke “Cabaret”!

I went running this morning! It was wonderful! My excuse for not running in the morning had generally been that I don’t want to go running on an empty stomach, but I don’t want to go just after eating breakfast, either. And I clearly didn’t have time to eat breakfast, wait, and then go running before work.

Well, I proved that wrong this morning. After many days of setting my alarm clock for 5 o’clock and then sleeping ‘till 7, I actually got up early! It was great – I ate breakfast, did some misc. work at my desk, and then went running with plenty of time to take a shower and get ready for work. I really like having the extra morning time – it’s just a matter of actually getting up out of the warm bed and staying out until my brain stops being fuzzy. I hope to figure out exactly what to do each morning in the 5 o’clock hour, something that makes me excited to jump out of bed and get right to it. If I can do that, I think my quality of life will be drastically improved.

I really want to have kids (like, NOW) but for reasons I won’t go into I feel obligated not to get pregnant for at least another year. I’ve been somewhat depressed about it, unsuccessfully trying to figure out how I could do it sooner. This was somewhat reflected in my most recent score in the Clean Sweep Assessment. But then last night I picked up a book I’ve had on my shelf for awhile, The Best Year of Your Life. This was something of a fortuitous time to pick up this book, since I have almost exactly a year (plus or minus a few weeks) before I’m “allowed” to get pregnant. This book prompted me to challenge myself to make this a vibrant, exciting year, rather than a year of moping and waiting.

One of the main points of the book is that when we fantasize about our future, we don’t necessarily want/need our fantasy exactly as envisaged, we really just want the feeling(s) that situation would create in us. For me, this is a sense of fun, creativity, freedom, boldness, and exploration. In addition, I have known for awhile that part of my reasons for wanting children so soon is the kind of lifestyle that would entail – I would feel justified in cutting back my work hours and going on “field trips” with the kids, doing fun little crafts projects, and having the chance to teach them everything they know. (Sounds like being an elementary school teacher, I guess, but without all the excessive preparation.) Anyway, the book suggests trying to capture these feelings in your daily life. So, that’s what I’m going to try to do.

I will also be shifting around some of my 43T goals: adding some things I’d like to do before I have kids, and creating a sense of closure on some of the goals that I feel are bogging me down, so that I can start with a clean slate.