Weekly Update: 11 January

It felt good to get back to routine this week after the disruption of snowpocalypse and the holidays. I do enjoy those adventures, but find that I miss the touchstones of practice (work, yoga, zazen) that normally comprise my week. I feel strange and cluttered without them.

So on Monday is was nice to go into the office. I have three office mates, but was still the only one working in the office. I would be joined on Tuesday by one of my office mates, which was nice. It gets lonely when I am there for several days at a time by myself. Tuesday night Sherri and I met for lunch and walked over to Whole Foods to enjoy lunch in their eating area (which has the microwave that my office lacks). I enjoyed some leftover bbq rice and beans while Sherri enjoyed a tofu salad with pita.

On Wednesday we both went to our usual level 1 class at Prananda yoga. I haven’t done yoga it a couple of weeks and it felt great. A nice easy class. Afterwards we made a yummy ginger stir-fry with black-eyed peas and barley.

Thursday was a busy day. I worked at home in the morning and then had back-to-back web development meetings in the afternoon. The later meeting was to work on the site plan for my sangha’s new website. I’m very excited to be working on this project. I think it’s an area to which I can contribute in a way that will be very beneficial for our members. This motivates me and keeps me very focused on making steady forward progress.

Friday I also worked at home, developing the database schema for the rewrite of a client’s web application. I’m also enjoying working on this project. It’s the first time I’ve been able to work closely with another developer, and I like the energy that our collaboration brings. I also worked with the veterinarian to get Atari some medication for his UTI (for which I noticed symptoms the previous night).

Saturday was a ‘me’ day. I spent the whole day at home reading and relaxing. I read Gregory Berns’ Iconoclast and started Percival Everett’s The Water Cure.  Sherri arrived after her yoga teacher training and we enjoyed a dinner of roasted delicata squash with sauteed zucchini over quinoa. We also watched the first part of The Story of India.

On Sunday after Sherri taught yoga while I ran errands, we visited the Portland Art Museum where we tried to see the Wild Beauty exhibit which was closing today. Unforunately we’d procrastinated too long and no more tickets were available for this limited exhibition. We recovered from our brief disappointment and had a nice time looking at the Asian and Native American art exhibits.

Right now I’m waiting for Sherri to arrive home after a staff meeting. The apartment smells wonderful because I have an Andean Squash and Bean stew simmering on the stove.

Next week looks to be very busy. There’s the the GeekGirls lunch on Monday that I’ve wanted to attend for a while, but haven’t made the time. And then Full Moon Yoga that evening. On Tuesday there are two user groups meetings that I must decide between: the PHP user group and the Portland Data Plumber’s group. I’m more interested the the latter, so that’s probably the one I’ll attend.

And of course Battlestar Galactica starts its final run this Friday! Sherri and I haven’t figured out where we’re watching it quite yet. The Baghdad is showing it, so that’s one possibility.