Hard Frost

Woke around 430am after many hours of restful sleep. I rather easily fell back asleep until 545am when I rolled out of bed for keeps. Downstairs, I slipped into my exercise shoes then glanced outside. It was clear, starry, and cold. Looked like our first hard frost. The smell of fresh coffee permeated the entire home. Over the next ten minutes I completed calisthenics (not a push-up day).

I was on a tight schedule, meaning I needed to be across town and at one of my customer's locations by 930am. With that as my goal, I moved steadily through the rest of my normal morning progression. As much as I wanted to, I simply couldn't afford to have a leisurely morning. Meditation, delivering Mindy's coffee, PC time, and stretching were all in the bag before 630am.

By run time it was 36 degrees. I dressed in the usual autumn attire but added hand and ear covers again. Hit the road before 640am. Enjoyable run. It might as well have been the middle of the night at the run's outset. By the three mile mark I could see the dawn of a new day on the horizon. Over the next 9 minutes the sky brightened significantly. Mindy was still at home, the Pilot warming in the driveway.

I leashed up the pug then headed out on a walk. Mindy was ready to leave just as Eiknarf and I made our way back up the driveway towards the house. Eggs, toast and fruit were waiting for me in the microwave. Bella was up and alert. Said she slept on her bedroom floor all night again. She said it's the best sleep ever. Not sure what's up with that, but hey.

Planned to shower immediately after bus time. We headed out at 755am. Chilly wait. Thankfully the bus showed up comparatively early or very near 8am. Back at the house I was quickly off to the shower. Wasn't too long before I was again downstairs and preparing to depart. Was ready to walk out at 820am but then considered that I would arrived around 845am and then have to sit idle until the start of our 10am quarterly meeting. In a perfect world I would get there around 920am. I decided to take a load and spent the next 15 minutes writing for my blog.

I noticed on Tuesday that the heat in the BM'er was slow to heat up. Stayed cool until I was almost to the airport and then came on like gang busters. I'll be it's the thermostat. Little wonder for how little it gets driven. I was hopeful that it would eat up a little quicker today. I left the house at 845am. This time the heat kicked into gear neat downtown. I'm just happy I didn't need it for the defrost feature.

Arrived near 910am but had to park at the very end of the deepest lot. It was long, cold walk up to the building. I didn't mind, though. Didn't plan or bother to go set up at an open cube. Instead, I parked my gear at a lounging area just around the corner from the conference room we were scheduled to meet in come 10am. It was occupied by others at the time. I sat there by my lonesome for about 10minutes or until several coworkers showed up, one of which was my boss. We talked strategy until 10am when the prior meeting's participants finally cleared.

we had an aggressive agenda and planned to run 90 minutes. I was slated to be the 4th presenter. I had about 10 slides to share. Those in front of me went a little long after some interesting banter. As usual, I got a little nervous as my time approached, but was calm and ready once the floor was turned over to me. My presentation went pretty well. And just as I expected, it provoked several questions. I wrapped up taking just one new to-do.
There were two presenters after me. The last guy by design went long. He was our guest speaker. His stuff was really interesting. By then we'd already gone over by 30 minutes. Hard to believe we'd been in there for 2 hours.

We huddled just outside the meeting room for another 30 minutes before I begged off for the office. My plan all along was to head back to Hilliard to finish my day. My boss soon shared that he had a couple follow-up meetings there so he planned to complete his day there. And since he was going to be there for the rest of the afternoon, it made little sense for me to head into the main office. I opted instead to head home to finish out my work day.

Arrived home just before 1pm and quickly got my laptop booted up . However, before digging into work, I took a 20 minute break, enjoying a mini ham sandwich, some cashews and water. Stayed busy with work through Jacob & Bella's return from school. Mindy was hosting an Eva Anderson party for teacher pals after classes at her school. She was still home by 430pm. I walked away from steady work near 5pm but kept a loose eye on my email well into the evening hours.

Jim came by to get Jacob for soccer practice after work. Can't remember if he came before or after Mindy left to run Bella to gymnastics at 530pm.

I guessed we'd be having leftovers for dinner. I wasn't hungry anyway. I spent a large part of my evening writing for my blog and keeping a loose eye on work. Around 630pm a case of the sleepies befell me. I plopped into one of the living room recliners and took a quality nap. Slept until Jacob returned home from soccer practice around 7pm, which by then it was already dark. He wasn't too thrilled that there wasn't any dinner waiting. I was all but certain that he'd ask to ride with me, conspiring for a fast food stop after picking up the peanut, but he didn't.

Still half asleep, I slipped into my running sweats then left to get Bella at 715pm. Easy drive. Arrived at 726pm. Got to see Bella do a few reps on the trampoline. We were on the road for home by 735pm. She asked about a stop at Dairy Queen. Not tonight. She didn't put up a fuss. She did, however, ask if she was able to watch TV again that night. Yes, her two day penalty was over. She was happy to hear that.

At home Bella asked he momma to prepare her some food. Not sure what Mindy made for her, but by then I was hungry too. I made a chili cheese burrito. It was just OK. Around 815pm I tuned the family room TV to the NFL Network TNF game. Bad pairing - Carolina Panthers vs. Tampa Bay. Who cares? I still watched for mind diversions sake. I poured a Jack & Coke, too. Bella sat on the sofa with me. Mindy was working on report cards from her laptop, or at least that's what I think she was doing. She was texting up a storm too.

All three of us headed to bed around 930pm. Jacob was already off to bed. Not sure what if anything he had for dinner. I asked Mindy if we could watch some of the 3rd quarter from bed. She agreed. It was still halftime so I tuned the TV to the Big Bang, a show I haven't watched in several weeks, and one we were addicted most of the spring and summer. Seen pretty much all of the episodes. We both realized that we missed the new episode that was on at 8pm. Oh well. While I watched TV, Mindy played with her phone from bed, though she kept a loose eye on the Big Bang rerun, too.

I returned to the football game, now already 10 minutes into the 3rd quarter. We might've watched 3 or 4 minutes before my eyes were too heavy to continue. Good night chilly moon!