Days 38-41 in 2015

This week has just really kind of been crazy. Thursday I moderated three lively focus groups about smartphones. I was able to hire Aaron to film the groups because our client decided to add a video deliverable on to their final report, which is great because Aaron’s been chomping at the bit to work lately. The clients were so cool and so fun (they were boozing it up in the back room while they watched the discussions).

It was our first time officially working with this agency, and it’s awesome because they have a TON of cool clients that they do research for, so getting them as a client is like getting multiple clients. Even more awesome - it was my THIRD lead that I’ve brought into the company and it’s another pretty sweet ‘get.’ I have a feeling we will be doing more work with them, assuming I put together a killer report & video for them in less than a week (GULP!)

Anyway, Thursday was a tricky day because both Aaron and I were at the focus group facility until 10p, and Aaron’s mom was leaving on the red eye to fly to MPLS. So, Aaron’s little brother bridged the gap from when she had to leave (8p) and when we got home (10:30p), but we assumed Gigi would help get Joaquin down to sleep, and Andrew would just chill until we got there. We DID NOT anticipate being greeted by a fully charged Joaquin when we walked in the door at 10:40p A FULL TWO AND A HALF HOURS PAST HIS BEDTIME! Ahhh. So anyway, Andrew was stressed, Joaquin was wired, and Aaron and I still hadn’t consumed much food. It was a lovely situation. So we turned on a movie, sat Joaquin between us and proceeded to devour our take-away salads. By about 11:15p, Joaquin finally drifted off and we transitioned him to his crib. Aaron and I fell asleep not much later, around midnight, but OF COURSE Joaquin was up and at em bright and early Friday morning.

Gah.

Naturally, I woke up with a sore throat Friday morning, but I went to the gym with anyway because I honestly felt that sweating it out would help me feel better (thankfully, it did). I also had to run around the mall and grab gifts for Joaquin’s teachers since they were having their big Valentine’s day bash at school that day.

We dropped Joaquin off at school at 12:30p and headed home to get ALL THE THINGS done for work (I’m currently working on FOUR big projects at the same time, it’s craziness). I was actually really productive and by the time we picked Joaquin up from school at 5:30p, we were all exhausted and ready for a chill evening. Instead, we decided to head to Target so I could pick up an external hard drive so I could transfer all the footage from the groups to hand off to our video editor on Saturday morning. It was actually really fun, and Joaquin is OBSESSED with Target, so he was over the moon. We picked up salads from Tender Greens on the way home, and enjoyed a low-maintenance dinner. After Joaquin fell asleep, Aaron and I made more progress on Sons of Anarchy and turned in for the night.

Saturday morning came way too early, again, even though Joaquin actually slept a nice, full 11 hours. I got a pair of sweet Valentine’s day cards from Aaron and Joaquin, and we were off to a good start for the day. We headed to the gym where I cranked out a little over 6 miles, then I headed out to the coffee shop to get some work done while Aaron finished his workout. We came home, ate and got Joaquin ready for another ‘party.’

We had made a reservation for the Valentine’s day party at his school - basically they organized a bunch of fun events so parents could go out and enjoy a date night. We dropped him off at 4:30p and headed to Glendale to hang at the Americana. Our first stop was SPRINKLES, where we picked out a yummy assortment of cupcakes. Then we headed over to Bar Verde at Nordstrom and enjoyed a lovely early rooftop dinner as we watched the sunset. Pretty relaxing and lovely.

We headed home to relax for a bit and enjoyed a few of the aforementioned cupcakes. We picked up Joaquin at 7:30p, and he was asleep within about an hour. We finished Sons of Anarchy season 6, which was a terribly depressing thing to do on Valentine’s day, but oh well. We followed it up with an episode of Downton Abbey, which is depressing and sad in its own way. Ha.

Today was Aaron’s day to wake up with Joaquin, so at 7:15a he headed down. I tried to fall back asleep for a bit, but started thinking about all the stuff I had to get done. So I lazed about for awhile and came down, when I realized they had already left to go to the gym. They should be back soon, and then Joaquin and I are going to head over to PIRATE PARK at 10a to meet up with his friend Nash from school, and his mom Leigh. She just had a new baby about three months ago, so the little one will be there as well. I’m enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee while I wait for my boys to get home.

It’s sunny and 64 degrees at the moment, and it’s shaping up to be a lovely Los Angeles day. I’m planning on cooking pork chops and watching the Walking Dead tonight, which I’m pretty excited about. Tomorrow is technically a holiday for our company, but not for me because I have WAY too much to accomplish. But Joaquin doesn’t have school, so it will be an interesting day. Aaron will have to be creative in coming up with ways to entertain the dude so I can crank it out.

Hope you all are having lovely weekends!