April In A Sentence A Day

Greetings! Today, and each month going forward, I'm documenting how I spent my month in just one sentence per day.

Turns out that the theme for April was What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger! Not only did I need to complete my last couple of very long training rides, at 55 and 60 miles each, before doing our 66 mile The Boob Ride bicycling event, I also needed to overcome a very steep learning curve in order to hire both an architect and a structural engineer upon being informed by my landscaper that he wasn't licensed to provide the city all that was required for completion of our backyard balcony rebuild. This after already having torn down the old balcony. Trust me when I say I could have happily clobbered my landscaper after he dropped that lovely bombshell!

But little my little, each obstacle was overcome, and success was ultimately achieved. And yet another lesson to myself that adversity can indeed be overcome if approached one small, manageable step at a time.

April In A Sentence A Month

1.  I feel a little guilty about seeing the most irreverent musical, possibly of all time, The Book of Mormon at Segerstrom Performing Arts Center on Easter Sunday, but we did, and it was brilliant!

2. My gal pal visited for the day all the way from Singapore, where she and her hubby are living temporarily, and I tried hard to pack as much in as I could - a seven mile hike, shopping, lunch at Ramos House Cafe in San Juan Capistrano, another hike along the bluffs in Dana Point, then dinner overlooking the harbor at Harpoon Henry's, whew!

My gal pal Mary was such a good sport in keeping up with all of my plans for the day!

3. Super interesting behind-the-scenes tour of Laguna Beach's 85 year old Pageant of The Masters with our OLLI group, then a short walk down to the beach with hubby for a terrific lunch at Urth Caffe before a short but scenic drive back home via Pacific Coast Highway.

4. Cancelled out on my scheduled 9 mile hike to instead spend the day ripping out the last of the insidious creeping fig from our backyard side fencing in order to help finish off the demolition stage of our backyard remodeling project, plus sunset viewing from new ground level viewing area.

5. Haircuts and grocery shopping in the AM, then off to our favorite San Clemente night club with friends for dinner and a night of hot Latin jazz.

6. Still more time ripping down creeping fig from our side walls as I hurried to take advantage of the free haul away being provided by our yard contractor, then off to a couples fellowship meeting in the PM.

7. Beach race walk in the AM with my group, coffee and pastry afterward with one of my fellow walkers, then home to prepare wine and appetizers for a fun visit with our oldest daughter in our newly cleared backyard, gazing outward at the opened up views as we chatted.

8. Took my sister-in-law to a John Denver tribute performance by look-alike Jim Curry, then out to dinner afterward, all to celebrate her 67th birthday.

9. Final training ride for our upcoming bicycling event - a 60 mile pedal up the coast and back, including lunch midway at the amazing and decadent Burnt Crumbs in Huntington Beach.

10. Puttered around the house all day cleaning and organizing, blowing off two previously scheduled Lifelong Learning classes, because I'm almost always a homebody the day after a long, hard athletic event.

11. Grocery shopping in the AM, then spent the remainder of the day pulling down creeping fig from the side fencing in the front of our home because I so liked the end results of clearing it off of our backyard fencing.

12. Pruned the front yard in the morning since we'll be without a gardener for a few months until the backyard is completed, then spent the afternoon sitting in a chair out back reading and watching birds, including a pair of red tail hawks, and one very noisy Cooper's hawk.

Cooper's hawk, which I now think is what we saw flying overhead earlier this month, rather than an Osprey.
The underwing markings of the two raptors are similar, but Osprey tend to stay right along the coastline in that they dine almost exclusively on fish, whereas Cooper's hawk remain inland, dining on land critters and smaller birds.

13. Super scenic, but very challenging (i.e. windy!) 40 mile bike ride down the coast and back with my group, including a swing onto Camp Pendleton Marine Base, and an encounter with a TV crew filming at San Onefre State Beach (Animal Kingdom anyone???), followed by lunch together at Mongkut Thai.

14. Morning four mile race walk with my Saturday group, home to meet a structural engineer regarding our enlarged backyard balcony plans, then a romantic evening with my hubby enjoying this OC Register best-of-the-best take-out pizza, plus a bottle of wine, at the beach while watching the sunset.

15. Joined a new-to-us Sunday evening San Clemente beach walk and dining group event that was so, so enjoyable in that the folks attending were really welcoming and friendly.

16. Met with another structural engineer that I liked better than the one I interviewed last week; fingers crossed that he agrees to take on our relatively small project.

17. Received an email proposal from the structural engineer I met yesterday, so it looks like we're moving forward again, relief!

18. Attended a wonderful lecture event given by Henry Rollins of punk band Black Flag fame (no worries, I didn't know who he or his band were either until I looked them up!) on why we should travel as often and hard as we  possibly can, while we can.

19. Met with the architect we hired upon our structural engineer's recommendation, then an interesting night out at Science Night, a monthly lecture series put on by the city of Dana Point, with this month's lecture focusing on The Wonderful World of Sharks, creatures I hope to never, ever encounter in the wild!

20. A quiet day spent at home, primarily working on my cross stitch project as I made a concerted effort to stay off of my feet ahead of tomorrow's big biking event.

21. We did it, we did it, we completed all 66.2 miles of The Boob Ride San Diego! !!

22. Lovely morning at a park in Mission Viejo celebrating Earth Day with our spiritual congregation, then home to prep for dinner and a book club discussion with my oldest daughter and her sweetie.

23. Got the piano tuned, always melodic in that our tuner always plays something beautiful before putting his tools away, then a walk along the San Clemente beach trail with hubby, enjoying lunch along the San Clemente pier halfway, plus we finally located a nearby area where we can park for free, vs. the trailhead's $1.50 per hour pay-lot, yeah!

Lunch was a modest $6 burrito, which we shared, but the views were priceless!

24. Spent all day working on my new granddaughter's cross stitch project, plus met with the architect designing our backyard deck and trellis, and liked what we saw, hooray!

The new deck will be twice the size of the old one, plus have backyard access via a new set of spiral stairs.
So excited!

25. Finally found a local dentist after a year (oops!) and had my teeth cleaned, then worked a volunteer shift at the harbor on an absolutely gorgeous spring day!

Sailboats dotting the waters outside of the harbor . . .  ten months living here and I am still pinching myself!

26. Another gorgeous spring day, this one enjoyed while dining alongside Mission Viejo Lake with my Gastronomers Club, exploring the world of Japanese Bento Boxes (click here to learn more about their very interesting history!).

27. Stitched and stitched and stitched, and finally finished my birth record project . . . now to await our new girl's arrival in order to add her name, birthdate, height and weight before getting it stretched and framed.

28. Gorgeous morning hiking along the Las Colinas Ridge with hubby, coffee and conversation together at Starbucks afterward, then off to attend my girlfriend's 60th surprise birthday party at scenic Las Brisas in Laguna Beach.

I love these women, all of whom I've known for over 25 years.

29. Busy day attending spiritual services, seeing a rather intense play at UCI A Bright Room Called Day, then a dinner engagement with friends at Brodard Chateau in Garden Grove, where we not only ate and drank ourselves silly (I'm talking to you Lychee Martini!), but also checked yet another restaurant off of our Top 75 OC list.

30. Attended an interesting lecture on Middle East religions, then home to not only plant an herb garden in my front yard patio area, but also install a protective wire surround in order to try and protect it from our very-cute but also very-voracious local bunny population!

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And so went the month of April! 

March In A Sentence A Day

Greetings! Today, and each month going forward, I'm documenting how I spent my month in just one sentence per day.

Turns out that the theme for March was Don't Stop Until You Drop! I don't know quite how it happened, but we ended up packing what felt like a year's worth of fun into March's 31 days. We hiked, we biked, we dined, we partied, we hosted, we rocked out, and we almost passed out from exhaustion on more than one occasion.

It was a heck of a good month!

(And P.S. - Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post to see who else is participating,

and to visit their blogs for additional Sentence A Day inspiration!)

March In A Sentence A Month

1.  Enjoyed a sunny walk to the beach and back with hubby, 6 miles in all, and the last time we'll likely get outside for a bit in that a big storm is rolling in per our local newscasters.

2. Early morning grocery shopping to stay ahead of the rain, a bit of reading by the fire while watching the rain, then off to volunteer at a jazz festival, where after working for several hours we were able to sneak into the first row and enjoy some freakin' amazing sax by Michael Paulo, plus some 80's R&B with crooner Jeffrey Osborne.

3. Well, we had planned to attend the Dana Point Festival of Whales, plus an outdoor Hamilton sing-along, before joining friends for dinner, but everything got rained out, so we ended up spending the day at home, although I did manage a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase some new bedding and wall hangings for our guest bedroom.

4. Early morning four mile race walk, spiritual services, then a wonderful walking tour of downtown Dana Point with the Historical Society as part of this month's Dana Point Whale Festival.

We learned that before Dana Point Harbor was built, people just drove right on up to the beach!

5. We did our scheduled 45 mile training bike ride, and the weather was absolutely picture perfect for it - 70 degrees and light winds.

We ate a sack lunch midway through the ride, but did stop for a well-earned treat just before finishing!

6. Attended two lifelong learning classes, then home to read for pretty much the rest of the day . . . ah, the joys of being retired!

7. My month for planning the dine out for our UC Irvine OLLI Gastronomy Club, so we all traveled to Stanton's Irrawaddy: Taste of Burma, where the owners gave a presentation on the style and flavors of Burmese cooking before the group happily dug in.

8. A 'typical' day in retirement at our new digs: AM gym workout, grocery shopping, volunteer shift at the harbor, dinner at home, then a marine science lecture in the PM.

9. A 25 mile bike ride through the Irvine bike trails with my biking group, including a stop for lunch, home to clean up, then a wine pairing dinner and presentation in Costa Mesa that featured the owners of the lovely Pear Valley Vineyard, located in Paso Robles.

Taken by the wine club's photographer during the evening's events.

10. AM race walk along the beach with my Saturday walking group, then hubby and I decided to skip our originally scheduled evening out event, and instead stay in and cozy up on a rare, rainy Saturday night.

11. The start of Daylight Savings, bah humbug on losing an hour of sleep, though I did appreciate this sweet note and hot cup of coffee my husband left me as a reminder,

then off to enjoy the play Plumas Negras at UC Irvine, about the farm workers of Salinas, California, and which was proceeded by a most interesting talk from the play's writer and director, Juliette Carrillo.

12. Gave myself permission to work on my needlepoint project the entire day for our soon-to-be-here new little granddaughter.

13. Our planned 50 mile training bike ride got fogged out, so we walked 12 1/2 miles instead, the approximate equivalent at my estimated 4:1 ratio (four miles of bike riding is roughly the equivalent effort of one mile of walking).

The weather we woke up to . . . a blanket of fog.

14. Spent the day grocery shopping and cleaning the house . . . every so often we do need to take a day off in order to take care of chores!

15. Field trip with my Art History class to San Diego's beautiful Balboa Park in order to visit the San Diego Museum of Art and the Timken Museum of Art, where we took three docent tours, learning lots and lots in the process.

16. A 30 mile bike ride through some of Irvine's multi-use trails with my biking group (Irvine has over a 100 miles of these paved trails), then home to enjoy a rare, but much enjoyed, quiet Friday night at home

17. Best St. Patricks Day ever as we kicked off the night with a Happy Hour get together at our house with two other couples, before heading to The Coach House to enjoy an absolutely fabulous night of Irish music with The Fenians.

One of our friends really went all out!

These guys are just as amazing in 2018, as they were back in 2008 below.
.

18. Six mile walk to and along the beach, home to clean up, then off to attend a performance of the Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

19. Completed our 55 mile training ride, traveling from Irvine to Bolsa Chica and back again, including a midway stop for lunch at Pacific City in Huntington Beach, then absolutely nothing the remainder of the day!

Hubby during the ferry crossing section of our route through Newport Beach.

20. & 21. Attended the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour at Orange Coast College with overnight guests - we love this event! - plus enjoyed over 18 miles of hiking and dining at some of our favorite lunch spots with them while they were here.

22. Out with the former, in with the new . . . our house guests left for home, only to be followed by Bob and Betty Lowry of Satisfying Retirement blog fame, who flew in for a five day visit, starting with a short hop over to San Clemente, where we walked to the pier for some sightseeing under threatening skies.

23. Took Bob and Betty to San Juan Capistrano for a walk through it's historic Old Towne, lunch at the wonderful Ramos House Cafe, a tour of San Juan Capistrano Mission, including a lecture on the swallows that migrate their annually, a stop into El Adobe for margaritas, home for naps, then out again to The Coach House for dinner and a concert featuring tribute bands to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones . . . . such a fun day!

The San Juan Capistrano Mission is one of California's oldest and most historic structures.

The mission's gardens were a good reminder that S. California is actually a dry, desert climate,
in spite of it's magnificent coastline.

Bob and Betty were terrific sports in agreeing to pose for this photo!

24. Started off our third day with Bob and Betty at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, a wonderful organization dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of marine mammals along our S. California coastline,

then on into Laguna Beach for lunch at scenic Las Brisas, followed by a stroll through town visiting a variety of artists studios, which I knew the very-artistic Betty would enjoy (and she did!).

Bob and Betty posing along the scenic pathway behind Las Brisas.

Beautiful Las Brisas always brings out the romance in hubby and me!

25. Today was all about our much anticipated whale watching excursion out of Dana Point Harbor, and it delivered in spades: five gray whale sightings, dozens of playful dolphin leaping all around our boat, and waves sufficiently high enough to cause a whole lot of rockin' and rollin', which just added to the day's excitement for most of us (hubby didn't fare quite as well with the high waves as the rest of us did, poor guy!).

26. We ended Bob and Betty's too-brief visit with a stroll down along Salt Creek Beach followed by lunch at Pain Du Monde before saying sad goodbyes at dropping them off at the airport for their return trip home.

Beautiful Strand Beach at low tide.

27. An aggravating trip to the DMV to update my address and also apply for California's new Real ID Drivers license (90 minutes, even with an appointment, grrr!), then took my gal pal out for lunch at Mendocino Farms in Tustin, where we exchanged lots of happy news about our growing families,

28. We joined our Wednesday hiking group for a nine mile trek in the hills of San Clemente, speed grocery shopped on the way back, then got cleaned up and entertained friends staying in Dana Point for the week, including a guys vs gals game of cribbage, where the gals prevailed and then some!

29. Our backyard project kicked off this morning, with lots of this going on currently -

- plus I worked a volunteer shift at the harbor.

30. Joined my bike group for a 40 mile repeat ride to Huntington Beach, enjoying lunch at scenic Bear Flag Fish Co. at the halfway mark.

The guys at our lunch break point at Bear Flag Fish Co. 

The gals staying warm around the restaurant's fire pit on a chilly Spring day.
 At 55 years, I'm the youngest of this
group by a good 10+ years, but let me tell you that
I have to pedal like a crazy person to keep up with this bunch!

31. Morning race walk with my Saturday group, chores at home, then met friends for dinner at the fiery Sichuan Impressions, where we all broke into a sweat as we ate, because, yes, it was that spicy hot!

Our massive sweet teas, recommended as a way to offset
the fiery food.

Tea leaf smoked ribs.

Cumin spiced lamb on toothpicks over a bed of red chiles.

Savory Cold Noodles up top, Juicy Steamed Chicken in Spicy Chili Sauce below.

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And so went the month! How was your March? Please share your highlights (or lowlights!) below.

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