::no more busy season::

It's been almost ten months since I switched jobs (same company, completely different work).  My former role was client-facing and pretty demanding.  While the busy times were pretty cyclical, it was difficult to plan weekends without work with much certainty.  Since transferring, the process of un-winding from that type of work has been a gradual one.  Now that it's that time of year when I normally would've been buried in work, I'm definitely noticing the difference.

For example, last year I never would've been able to do what I did over the weekend in February.  I would've either been at the office, working from home, or suffering from exhaustion and worried about the upcoming week.  Instead, on Saturday I made lemon orzo soup for lunch and then decided on a whim to also make granola to have with yogurt for breakfast all week.

Lemon orzo soup - missing a lot of the veggies the recipe called for, but I did the best I could the day before our grocery shopping day.

What better to do with the leftover cranberries and apricots from my recent treats than put them in some granola?



The finished product!  I like it best with thick Greek yogurt and crunchy grapes.

Another thing I could never do during busy season (at least not with any plans set up in advance): hang out with my friends.  This past weekend, Ava, who just moved to Portland from LA, decided to come up and visit her Seattle friends.  I got to have brunch at Peso's with Ava, Ava's fiance, Morgan, and Christie, and on short notice!  It was fantastic.  Not only did I get to spend time with some great company, we also decided that dessert was appropriate after brunch and to Trophy Cupcakes we went!



Eric and I split a s'mores and triple chocolate cupcake.  The s'mores one definitely inspired a future rice krispy treat...

 Those were the highlights of my non-working weekend, although I also got to do things like fill our recently-made-bookshelves with things we got to take out of storage (more on that later), catch up on last week's TV, package up some treats (pretty darn cutely) to bring to co-workers, and make some other home-cooked meals.  I swear I'm not about to rub this in the faces of people I used to work with in my old role -- or anyone else that has to put in weekend hours at work -- I am just truly grateful that I don't have to anymore!