Back in Santa Cruz

My childcare responsibilities are over....I'll miss them.  It was quite big to be looking after five live in cats (plus one visitor) and a dog for two weeks - there are alot of logistics and a lot of personalities to deal with.  In the end we settled into a very pleasant routine and it was lovely to have pets around.  The neighborhood  I stayed in was very pretty too. Established by a civil war general it's this little pocket of colonial type housing in downtown San Jose - everyone knows everyone and they all know each others pets!  Best part was a little cluster of eateries 5mins walk away including Naglieeparkgarage.  This is a clever (and it looks like) lucrative restaurant.  It really is an old converted garage that has great out door seating.  They serve beer in jars and have a really really simple menu of good food (can't beat the trout!). Every Thursday they have live music and the place is jammed, they also play movies on an outdoor screen (not sure when that starts up).  Anyway it's a very popular local haunt, I loved it!  It's prompted me to think about where I might buy a house (actually I'm looking at a condo) and I'm seriously thinking that I'd like to buy in Capitola (south of Santa Cruz and still on the coast).  This is a very cute village that offers good restaurants, fab beach and affordable condo living.  Santa Cruz really is just a little too nutty/hippy for me.  I figure if I get something that isn't too expensive I can live in it for a while then if I want/need to move I can keep it and rent it out (or have it as my "beach house".  All quite possible as I'm saving and do/will have a good deposit.

Work is in the calm before the storm - we have a major quarterly release coming up in August, that's always very intense and (to date) has lead to those early early morning phone calls.  I've started to talk to my boss about "where next" in a career sense.  Not planning any big moves right now just want to have a sense of possibilities I should be thinking about when the economy starts to turn.  I've taken on wider responsibilities at work so I'm still learning - I'm still not convinced I'm an operations girl though, but that's the job for now!  My boss is fab, she gets that I'm way more interested in the business side so is happily coaching me.

Going to join the gym today (yep finally decided it was time to get into regular exercise - walking the dog twice a day turned into a nice routine).  Guess I also need to gear myself up to the return to the daily commute, it was lovely to be 10mins from work and be able to ride the bike everyday - still there is always a tradeoff somewhere and it's not like I'm not spoilt for choice!