Another Monday, Back to School for Johnnie

It is another Monday and although it feels like a run-of-the-mill Monday, I do want to build on the momentum of last week and how I managed to experience pretty much everything I intended to experience, at least what I noted at the begining of the week LAST Monday. And also on the heels of an Easter Sunday that was spent at Lisa's house for a fam dinner with Feifei and kids. I kind of see today as a recovery day even though I knew I was going to have another full workout day like I have the past several Mondays. So I did a nice meditation session to set my intention for the week. And this week really it was just THE one event, which is my speaking engagement on Friday for the CCALAC symposium. I wasn't really stressing over it, it feels like just another Tech Council Meeting and I feel like I'm simply giving people their money's worth even for THAT QueensCare meeting. Friday should be just more of the same. And anyway, that's a many days away. What comes with Monday is all that COVID vaccination reporting too. And so my Monday went BAM-BAM-BAM really. Meditation session, then up walking around the neighborhood until I got to 4500 steps (over 2 miles), and then breakfast and shower, and then the Business Continuity Meeting. If that sounds like a full Monday morning already, that's because it was. I got such a nice start with steps first thing, I continued through lunchtime, even walking to Ralphs to pick up fried chicken and cole slaw for lunch. I was already well past 8500 steps mid-day. I'm already assured I'd be able to finish another 15,000 steps today. As far as the reports, I'm also developing a rhythm there even though what i'm doing is very much manual. I still got all the data posted by 3 PM in the afternoon. And I even got a big head start working on the HRSA numbers that are due tomorrow. And THEN I also remembered I was also asked by Eloisa to host the Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday. Which means I have to pick out the music at the beginning of the session. I already made up my mind last month everyone is going to listen to Israel Kamawiwo'ole Somewhere Over the Rainbow so really there wasn't much to do. I was supposed to talk cybersecurity but I was just going to pick out excerpts from my talk on Friday. Yes I really am cruising on this Monday. A very good thing.

In the meantime, the other to-do of course was to pick up Johnnie. Lisa called me earlier than usual... as in 4:30 PM because she wanted us to have a conversation with Johnnie. It would seem he's being a little rough with Claire. No surprise there. I yell at him about that all the time it seems. He still needs to learn control. But he's also being rough with Lisa. No surprise there either. I told her the stuff I would do to deter him from doing either. Of course it would be easy for me to just tell Johnnie he doesn't get to watch videos. For Lisa I don't know what that carrot and/or stick would be. But I was willing to go along with whatever she felt was appropriate. I noticed Courtney was still there at her house doing her best to look busy. I can only hope Lisa is not affected in a significant way. She just broke it to me yesterday that she thinks she's allergic to Claire. Great... she was the one that brought the dog in! And NOW she's allergic? What's going to happen now? All you can do is shrug your shoulders and let Lisa make her decisions. As far as the dog I am not really all that emotionally invested. Not just yet and I told her that. It's not like when we got Johnnie. Not even remotely close. But I would feel sorry for the dog. She HAS imprinted with us I think. And with me particularly. She knows me. It is me she runs to whenever Johnnie gets rough with her. Me she looks for when she is trying to sleep at night. We will see what happens, But for tonight, I picked up Johnnie and immediately went into Monday night routine. Lots to do tomorrow to prep for his return to in-school sessions next week., including a COVID test at Grand View Elementary.  Tonight, Johnnie ate 3 whole bowls of penne pasta in chicken broth. And I put away some of my awesome beef stew as well. I let him watch whatever he wanted knowing full well he was going to try to watch some more Octonauts. And so this turned out to be a quiet Monday night. As expected, I blew past 15,000 steps before it was even 8 PM and got to 110 active minutes pretty easily. And i wasn't even tired or sore. Here's to hoping the rest of the week goes by just as quietly.