summer?

I've been reading about the summer heat in various parts of the US - I'm a little bit jealous. I say little bit, because I don't like heat - heat. But my god; we still have the heat on in this house! That's just not right. We're lucky if the high is 65; I wear a jacket every day to work, I wear short sleeved shirts and freeze all day (so I wear a scarf to compensate - thank god I have a good collection!). We even turned on the living room fireplace one night this past week. I finally took the wool throw off the bed; wish I hadn't. I've been waking up in the middle of the night freezing; that's with flannel sheets and and a light cover on top. As I'm writing this blog, D is laying on the sofa with a blanket cuddling with Mooshi and Juju.  Summer?

I have managed to get on my yoga mat Tuesday-Friday this past week. Well, I should clarify. I wake up, lay in bed with my over active monkey mind anywhere from 4 to 6, after I finally quiet the monkey mind I roll out of bed between 5:45 and 6:00am, throw on yoga clothes, walk next door to where my yoga mat lies waiting for me, start with 5 cat/cow moves and then to the top of my mat. Once I get past the first two or three Surya A's I'm fine and amazingly managed some decent practices. Finish around 8, shower get ready for work, fortunately my commute is only 15 minutes or so and roll into work around 9ish or a few minutes after. It really doesn't matter, I work so late with those fun calls back to the US a few nights a week. Plus, I get a shitload of work done each week - seriously.

Speaking of work. I had my 1:1 with my boss today - we get along really well - great mutual respect for one another. Whatever I do, he has my back. My team on the other hand - well I'll just say it's a work in progress. I doubt if they ask me to extend my contract here for another year I will accept. I don't know... I think I'd rather move over to Amsterdam and work at European HQ's. Will see - still too far in the future.

Planning trip back to Portland in August. While for work I cannot wait to see my sister, yoga friends, and perhaps even a trip up to Seattle to visit a friend. Will work out the details next week.

This week-end we're heading out for some hiking - it's supposed to be sunny both in the Peak and Lake District - need to figure out which direction to head to. Next week I'm taking Thursday and Friday off - want to drive down south somewhere. Need to figure out where.... I'm in the mood for a roadtrip with a loose agenda.

So, it's Friday night, D has fallen asleep on the couch and I'm downloading music off of iTunes. Such an exciting life we have. (seriously though, I love it)

is it too early to retire?

Normally I do not blog about work.

But I have just have to take a moment out of my day to seriously consider the possibility of cashing out on all my stock and retire right now!

Hello again....

Wow - such a long time since my last post. Life's been busy. 

We finally discovered the Lake District (amazing!), and we visited Shakespeare's birth place down south, had to travel to China again, of course I make time to be on the yoga mat, and oh yeah there's work. Implemented a big organizational change at work - very happy that's over and we started a new FY which equates to a lot of work.

Things have not really settled down, but getting back to my 6am yoga practice has helped instill my priorities. Unfortunately there is not ashtanga studio in the greater Manchester area that offers a traditional morning mysore program. But, fortunately, there is a great ashtanga teacher (Matt Ryan) who is teaching mysore one week out of every month. And finally this month I'm in town so I signed up. Since I've moved to the UK this is the first week that I've managed a six day full on ashtanga practice! Now if I could just muster the discipline on my own. The August week that Matt is teaching I'll be traveling again. I'm bummed; even trying to get out of that trip so that I can stay in town. Will see if I'm successful or not.

A bit of a sporadic post; but it's something. Need to get back to work.