A Good Day

I can't decide whether to follow that up with "at last" or with "can I have some more please", but anyway, today has been good. Yesterday was actually pretty good too, so perhaps I'm on a roll.

Yesterday first. I had the review with my manager, and it went really well. I felt like she really listened to my concerns about how far I have (and haven't) come yet, while she also made clear to me that I am doing well, she is pleased with my progress, and she doesn't expect me to be further along than I am. I was surprised by how reassured I was by her take on the situation. I know that I can be harder on myself than others are, but I guess I needed to hear it again.

It doesn't mean the job isn't still going to be hard, and that I won't have bad days and get frustrated. But I need to try to remember that it will take time; it's not just my imagination, this company is complicated, and there's a lot to learn. Patience, patience.

After work, I went to the house of friends* who were having some of us over for dinner for their daughter's seventh birthday. No, I can't believe she's seven already! And she and her brother, who was three in May, were really good, energetic of course but such good kids, so it was a very pleasant evening.

*JP and JB, specifically

I had a few bad dreams last night, isn't that odd? One was bad enough that I had to hug Carlos and stay awake for a few minutes; I kept slipping back into the dream when I closed my eyes, and I didn't want to, the bad guy was way too close and really scary! Finally I let myself go back into it consciously to re-write the ending, which seemed to work somehow (sounds funny to me, too). But that doesn't explain the odd one later, where I seemed to be a Japanese man, walking around and around an odd hotel-like place with my real-life best friend and a large suitcase, trying to find a room or maybe a cubby, which ended with an enormous snake ... that was weird.

I went over to my friend SG's house at 10 this morning and hung out with the baby for a little while while she and her husband were painting. We played for almost an hour, if you understand playing to mean that I either handed him toys, or maneuvered him to where he could get at them, and then he tried to get them into his mouth. He's only four months old, but is he determined! Anyway, then it was bottle time, and he chugged it down and conked out for half an hour, which I very much enjoyed holding him for. Ah, babies.

This afternoon I took it easy, as I had a little bit of a headache, then my friend JDJ came over to celebrate my birthday early (since I'll be away the next two weekends), with lovely gifties I'll photograph in daylight tomorrow to show you, and then we met another friend, E, for dinner, which was delicious. It was such a nice evening, and it kicked off the Season of the Birthday* very nicely.

*Just celebrate ON my actual birthday? Why? That's so ... limiting.

Photo Briefs
I hit historic, or at least notable, mileage today, just as I pulled into the gas station.


The latest sock is, according to my Ravelry notes, my 14th pair, and the eighth in a row in this pattern. I love this pattern.


That was yesterday; it's a bit farther already. The yarn is from Apple Festival last year (item 2 in this post). Mmm, alpaca.


This morning, one of the comics summed up perfectly how I feel about October.


I like it for what it is ... but not what it leads into.