Lemonade

My day started off all wrong, but it was not all bad. I have been trying to get to bed earlier this week and only kind of making it (notice it's 1am). After nearly passing out on the couch to John Stewart, I was in bed before midnight, but I took a magazine to read and it got me all fired up. I knew that reading about ideas of things to do, and food, wasn't the best idea, but combined with work worry, I'm AWAKE.

Funnily enough, in a bit on budgeting, the Cooking Light recommended feeling better by writing down "4 non-financial things you're grateful for". Wonder where I've heard that idea before... so here goes.

The kicker that really woke me up was that this gratefulness/happiness comment was 2 pghs after I found out that someone named Teri Gault stole my idea independently had a genius idea about grocery cost tracking but actually implemented it. On The Grocery Game one can get prices on items from various local grocery stores. Heh. Well, it entertains me that someone else had a similar idea to mine and makes it work.

The reason I have this magazine is that a friend of mine renewed my lapsed subscription thinking we could choose a recipe each month, make it on each coast, and compare. Have we? No. Life exploded. But I like this friend and want to keep in touch and isn't she the sweetest for thinking of it? This month has any number of recipes (lower fat cinnamon rolls, easy sausage rolls) and quick dinners that I want to try - they're either a twist on something I make a lot of or something I'd want to make a lot of if it works out. I'll be trying to give that idea a go this month, then. Back on the homefront, I got to have lunch with my friend again - we aim for every wednesday but the last 8-10 weeks have mostly not worked out.

We won again at trivia. Only instead of our recent two people, we had 8. Our team founder, my coworker, is out on medical disability and not having a great time of it. Got the usual losing weight, feeling terrible, too tired to socialize thing going on. So it was good to see him out and about with his wife and other friends of theirs. Plus with them there, we held our lead through the sports round - where did team X reloacate from? I knew one; all together, our team got double on the double or nothing that requires all correct answers.

The thing that made me happiest today happened midafternoon. I went over to a local machine shop. (There are many nearby. I find this thrilling.) I tested out and picked up a wafer handling tool I designed to use for handloading some wafers into a tool before we complete the conversion of the automated handler. It works, and it came from my brain, started as a sketch on paper, and is now a fun little tool.

Turns out I do feel better now, and more settled. I heard from work about my tool qual which is still in progress but looking good. Better than I'd feared. Maybe my process actually is robust enough now to take a licking and keep on ticking. I'm confident enough after this last check in that even if it gets put available tonight, I'll be ok with it. Now hopefully I can sleep because I have a ticket for "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" tomorrow in Santa Barbara and I want to be awake for both the show and the drive home.