Trip to NorCal

I was MIA last week because Hunter and I went up to NorCal to visit my family while Sam was in Mammoth for a convention and San Diego for a bachelor party.

Our family is incredibly tight-knit and I'm lucky to have a close relationship with my parents and grandparents as well as my aunts, uncles and cousins.

Last week, Dad and I were supposed to go skiing, but the weather has been so warm the Sierra Nevada mountains are struggling to keep their ski lifts open. We decided to stay in Lamorinda and conduct Spring Training for the softball team I've joined. I also figured out that Mom and Dad have wireless internet, which made working from their house so much easier! I also showed them the magic of FaceTime with Carina and I think they enjoyed that, too.

I spent last Wednesday with my grandparents fixing a few of their technological issues and sharing book recommendations. We all went out to dinner in San Francisco to my favorite Italian restaurant to celebrate Nonna's birthday (which was yesterday).

It's times like these that I'm sad we don't live in closer proximity to our families, although, I realize that would require even more juggling of time and priorities than we have to do now. One thing is for sure, if we move to the East Coast for Sam's fellowship year I will definitely miss being able to drive 'home' to visit my amazing family.

Freedom and Freelance

Freelancing is incredibly different this time around. I have such a better understanding of how to pitch new business, what kinds of documents clients want to see, etc. I'm also a lot better equipped to assess what jobs and projects are a good fit or something that I'm not likely to enjoy/excel at. I am incredibly thankful for my taste of agency life, and it's absolutely helped me grow in my never-ending quest for self-improvement and career advancement.

One skill that I've always been very strong at is organization - even at the agency I was consistently complimented on my mastery of details and project management. I find that organization is a blessing and a curse, because if my work space isn't organized I have a very hard time focusing. Over the years, I've learned that time spent improving my environment on the front-end usually translates to success at the back-end. For that reason, I spent most of my first week "off" putting my things away and reorganizing my desk in our guest room. Things are now exactly as I want them and I'm able to focus on potential projects without the clutter of piles of paper all over. 

Another thing that's changed this time through funemployment is how exhausted I am. I think that agency life took a much greater toll on my emotional health than I realized, and my body is trying to recuperate and acclimate to its stress-free state. I used to be able to get to bed at 9-9:30 and be up at 4:30 for Kaia, but I didn't even make it up by 6:45 the past two days.  I am hoping that my energy level rebounds soon so that I can get into a routine. 

One of the things that is always challenging working from home is time management. I've had a significantly more challenging time with that this time around, probably because I'm much more serious about launching a freelance career, improving my fitness and finding that ever-elusive work-life balance than I was last time around. I think I have a huge fear that I'll repeat my history of focusing 110% on work and going down the rabbit hole of poor eating habits. Then again, I am so much more aware of my personal needs than I have been at any other point in my career. Perhaps I've done more growing up more in the last 18 months than I realize. 

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

This morning, Sam woke me up before he left to tell me a few things:

1. He was proud of me for getting the raise I deserve at work (I had my annual review last week and asked my boss to reconsider my merit increase and gave him four reasons I deserve the more money, and named my price.  To my surprise, he met my request yesterday!!!)
2. He wanted me to make the roasted tomato basil soup recipe he found in the crock pot cookbook
3. Our water heater wasn't working properly and he'd taken a lukewarm (at best) shower

Needless to say, it was a lot to take in at 6:00 this morning.  Hunter and I decided it was best NOT to lounge in bed, and we got up to tackle our honey-do list.  

First, I reviewed the recipe (which I included at the bottom of this post) and saw that I needed to roast the canned stewed tomatoes with brown sugar and diced onion in the oven for 30 minutes to create the base of the soup.  I was pretty confident I couldn't chop the onions small enough to make them smooth in the soup without a little help from my favorite emulsifier, so I pulled out the archaic cuisinart we got from Sam's grandpa several years ago when we helped him move out of his house.  The thing worked like a dream!  It took care of the chopping while I was spreading the tomatoes out on a baking sheet and sprinkling them with the brown sugar.  

Then, while the tomatoes, sugar and onions were in the oven, I took Hunter on his morning potty walk and tackled the pilot light on the water heater.

After everything had roasted, I popped it all back into the food processor so I could get the mixture as smooth as possible before tossing it into the crock pot with chicken broth, tomato paste, some spices and the left over juice from the canned tomatoes.  Needless to say, I did a lot better with the food processor than if it had been up to me to chop everything by hand.

Into the crockpot it all went, and then I started working on the dishes.  Unfortunately, the water coming out of the sink was still all cold, so I had to call our property manager and have her sent up a handy man to get the water heater functioning again.  Hey, at least everything was fixed before 9:30!

The final product was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself!  Sam has made a few comments to me that on the days I am working from home he would like me to get a home cooked meal put together so that it's ready when he gets home from work.  I suppose he's got a point that it would be nice if I did a little more cooking.  Even if some days it's a crockpot meal that I prep in the morning and then let simmer all day, rather than a complicated recipe I tackle at 5:00 when i get off work, it's nice to have home cooking and it's something we want to make a priority when we have our own family.