Manic Monday

"It's 6 o'clock already and I'm just in the middle of my dream."

Well that was literally me this morning. I had back-to-back dreams one before the alarm clock sounded and another afterwards, when I decided to go back for the mandatory "5 more minutes" after one turns off the alarm clock.

Funny how our dreams come out. I find that in order for me to document them, I have to blog about them.

The first dream (I think both dreams are actually one dream combined) I was lunching with college gal pals. I saw Betchay, Doc Sheila. The table was full, so I suppose the whole gang was back together, except for Fe, who in the dream we phoned to tell her how we wished she was joining us for lunch.

Then the obnoxious, louder than necessary buzz of the alarm clock abruptly cut my luncheon date. It's amazing how blindly we find the source of noise in our half asleep state. As I was doing so, I had to pull myself upwards to reach the alarm clock and the familiar weight on top of my legs told me my little kitteh Emma had been sleeping on top my legs still. I am her bed. The movement did not bother the cat and I mumbled to no one in particular, "5 more minutes". That was at 7:00 AM.

Second dream I was meeting up with Pat and Gigi, girlfriends of mine from here that I met in another school setting, for dinner. I was aware that I just had lunch with my college "barkada". While we were getting settled in our table (love the cozy ambiance of the restaurant), here comes my college classmate Belle with her little boy Bryton. It made no sense at all. How could my college life fuse with my after college life. It's really interesting. It makes me want to read up more on dream interpretation.

When the dream ended, I woke up to find that the 5 minutes was actually 35 and so I jumped out of bed hoping that I wouldn't come in late today.

Some years ago, college to be exact, I was very interested in dream interpretation. I read up on it, although most of what I read I cannot remember now. In my early years after I moved to California, I spent a lot of time in bookstores with coffee shop inside of them and browse at all the dream interpretation books I could find on the shelves and over coffee and biscotti I would scan the pages. Nothing of that reading knowledge remains with me today.

I'll be blogging on my other site about my day trip on Sunday to a very interesting spot called vernal pools just outside of Sacramento.

Almost Perfect Day

I was going to blog yesterday about how sleep eluded me on Sunday and I had to go to work on Monday feeling like a zombie. BUT, a big but, then I got busy like Monday always is and combine that with the heat, then it's a potent concoction that would definitely render the disinterested useless.

It felt like summer here the past three days where temperatures range in the mid to high 80s with clear blue sky. "Please let's not do gardening and house chores today. The day is so beautiful to waste on cleaning the house." That's what I said to the mister as we drove home from church service on Sunday. We have after all did chores all Saturday including vacuuming the car under the 80-degree heat. I almost melted.

He was crazy not to listen to me. I felt he too needed a little break. So we phoned our friends to see if they were game for a little afternoon out. Turned out they were free.

Thirty minutes later we were all driving towards the beach. Our destination was Rodeo Beach at the Golden Gate National Preserve. And you guessed it, we weren't the only ones who thought the beach was a great place to be that Sunday afternoon.

We packed in some munchies and some cold ones, the husbands laid in warm sand, I was walking up and down in my bare feet trying to soak up the heat from the sand while my upper body is cooled off by the cold breeze. We stayed there for about two hours, did not attempt to dip our toes in the water, because going towards the water the wind was blowing really hard, typical San Francisco Bay Area beach weather, what can I say.

On the drive back home we stopped in Sausalito, parked the car, grabbed some ice cream and coffee (perfect combination) and walked towards the waterfront and did a little browsing at the store windows that we passed. Likewise, Sausalito was packed with tourists, 9 out of 10 was walking around the city licking an ice cream cone. It was definitely a day made for ice cream.

Perfect day wasn't it? Almost but not quite. You see when we left Rodeo Beach we decided to first go to one of the lookout points to gander at the jewel of San Francisco - the Golden Gate Bridge - where clear vistas of the bridge only come rarely. We photographed the bridge and the city with excitement of a first-time visitor, which I'm sure the others with us in the vista point were thinking of us as tourists. We posed with the bridge as the background just like any tourist would.

Here's where the wrinkle happened. When I uploaded the pictures in my computer that night, all my photos taken that day, all 268 of them, were grainy. Grainy!!!!! How could that be? I didn't fiddle with the setting. I made sure the lens is clean and free of fuzz. I checked and rechecked if it's set in auto focus and I always either shoot in landscape or automatic. But apparently the camera had a mind of its own and decided to change the settings on me. The hubs swore he didn't change any setting, and I didn't. So it could only be Buster and Emma (the cats) but knowing their thumbs haven't made an appearance yet, that left me no choice but to say the camera did it.

Apparently, the whole day I was shooting in jpeg instead of RAW as I normally do. I was so frustrated. A whole day's worth of photos wasted. Garbage.

The good thing is I live here. I can wait another season or two to time the perfect clear blue sky over the Golden Gate Bridge and have another try at it. Plus it's not like I've never had opportunities and photos of it before. But still I was so stoked to photograph it on Sunday. Another consolation is the fact that I also brought and use my little point and shoot camera, whose photos turned out okay as usual.

What's been happening?

What's been happening?

Lately I've been feeling overwhelmed. It felt like I've got too many balls up in the air, and I could hardly juggle my way into it. However, I decided to step back and see the situation minus my emotions. It couldn't have been that hectic if I could still sit for a whole hour to watch my favorite tv show (well all of them at different times) or even unwind by playing computer games. I'm glad I took a little breather and stepped back so I could see things clearly.

The past several days I've been dreaming weird dreams. For 3 consecutive nights, I dreamed I was inserted in tv shows/movies. The characters were there and so was I. There was one night that I woke up exhausted because it was one of those slasher movies. I shy away from this type of movies, but I'm familiar with this one. The other 2 nights I dreamed my self was in two different tv shows from Syfy. Weird. And tiring. I really need good sleep.

Organized the first Bingo Night at church over the weekend, which was successful. I don't know when's the next one because Bingo is part of the Monthly Activity Program and Bingo would have to wait in rotation with Movie Night and Game Night.

On my to-do list:
• fix skirts by hemming in new ribbons (still need to buy ribbons at fabric store)
• get jewelry fixed. need my pearl necklace restrung. got two pearl necklaces that need this fix. may be I can do it.
• collect all dust-gathering fiction books in the house and donate them in the library. also must take all magazines to hospital/clinic waiting rooms.
• find an easy chocolate treat to make for our church's fundraiser in June called Chocolate Extravaganza.
• find new pet insurance.
• research about fix our ferals program and/or volunteer to the clinic.
• sign up for swimming lessons.

So far those are my to-do list. I've been travel free the first quarter of this year, which is pretty much the norm around here lately. I've got quite a project this year that might cramp my travel plans but while it's not travel vacation per se, the project requires I board a plane to Mexico, so it can be loosely defined as a travel as well.

Since I'll be mostly here in Northern California this year, I'm looking forward to:
• Lavender Festival in Santa Rosa
• Lavender Festival in Kenwood
• Eat Real Festival in Oakland
• Little get-away in the Central Coast, either Monterey area or Cambria/Morro Rock area.
• Little get-away in the North Coast preferably in Mendocino.
• Visiting Mt. Diablo State Park.
• More day trips to Sonoma and Napa Valleys.

When I lag behind writing posts here, I tend to consider shutting this down, despite the fact that I needed this to document what's been happening. I just really keep this going for me. If you read the posts, thanks. If you don't, that's fine too.

Food Craving Friday

Anyone else craving some sushi?

Springtime Delights

Chatter

Cannot come up with sensible things to say so let me just give you a run-down of what's been happening here.

Good Friday was mom's birthday. No celebrations because it's Good Friday you see. Went to the usual schedule of Visita Iglesia and only hit up 3 churches this year. I know from experience that the other 2 churches that we visit every year opens after 2 pm and we are done with our visit by that time.

Between Visita Iglesia and Taize Good Friday service, I managed to get a mammogram and pelvic ultrasound procedure, per doctor's order. It's a screening mammogram that every one should get after a certain age. And the pelvic ultrasound is to just check on the conditions of fibroids - if they reappeared after my myomectomy 3 years ago.

Family lunch at brother's house on Saturday for mom's birthday. Went for a mile hike climbing the El Sobrante Ridge. Great views from up there. The path goes a long way, maybe will tackle this with a group, more fun walking with a group. Had fun with just hubby walking and photographing too.

Easter Sunday service was so much fun. Church was full of people. Congregation formally welcomes twins that are a few months old. Potluck followed service and egg hunt.

Sunday pm was spent doing laundry, blogging/surfing, and spent a whole night of catching up on the Watchathon that Comcast had. We found out too late. We could only watch 6 epi of last season's Game of Thrones.

Easter Monday commute was wet, doesn't feel spring at all.

Baseball season opened with the Giants on the road at Chavez Ravine. They lost the first game. It's just one game.

I must find an exercise/work-out plan/routine that would suit me and interest me. Help.