A WEEK

This was quite an emotionally charged, mega whopper of an eventful week.

I finished up my job.

I took a day off.

I started eating healthy again.

The next day I interviewed for and was offered a new position. I accepted. 

I had high tea with the ladies.

 

I started planning a trip to Chile*

We made some new additions to the menagerie.

I worked * on wedding invites.

I baked 120 cupcakes

And made a mess proportionate to the number of cupcakes baked.

I was surrounded by my lovely bridal brigade who helped me put together invites.

I soft launched my business during International Design week with aforementioned cupcakes. (It was a very soft launch-more on this later)

And then I wrapped up the week with a slothful day of extreme laziness, and too much cupcake eating, effectively killing the healthy eating kick.  

The pups were just as tired as I was.

It was a WEEK, all capitals. And I’m so looking forward to getting more accomplished over the next two weeks before I start my new position.

*The moment I realized I had 6 weeks (!!) vacation time with my new job I immediately started working on my dream of traveling to Chile. NYE 2012 will be spent with some of our closest friends celebrating in a country I’ve been longing to visit for years. So freakin excited.

*By I worked, I mean, I asked my talented friend to draw me stuff and then leaned over the shoulder of my lovely SIL to nit pick details and she patiently did all the hard stuff.

Life is like a trifle....a poor metaphor about job loss.

This post was not supposed to read this way. It was something else entirely….fun light yummy deliciousness.

And then life happened and I found out that I lost my job on Tuesday. To clarify I didn’t misplace it, but the charity I work/ed* for ran out of money and just plain old can’t afford me anymore. I’m good at what I do; unfortunately I am not a successful fundraiser. I’d seen this coming at me for months, but it still managed to surprise me.  I thrive on change, but like to “ostrich” and just stay comfortable.

So, the timing ain’t good. I can’t see when it would ever be good really. There’s this wedding thing happening.

However, one thing I loved about where I work/ed, was that I developed a very healthy dose of perspective. I am enormously blessed* to have an incredibly supportive set of friends and family. We are lucky enough to live at home with the boy’s parents, which is a huge worry that we don’t have to deal with. And I’m happy to live in a country where we are socialist enough to give people security nets in the form of employment insurance.

So that baking story. I tried to replicate an AMAZING pie that my talented friend Carolina made for New Year’s (and yes I’m still thinking about it) and it failed miserably. It was supposed to have a light as air, crunchy and sweet meringue pie shell, filled with chocolate mousse and topped with Chantilly whipped cream (which I learned is a fancy name for whipped cream that has vanilla added and sweetened). It was called a Chocolate Angel Pie.

And the shells turned out disastrously.

*sad trombone*

So when faced with a baking disaster, I whipped up a trifle. We were heading to dinner at a friend’s place and I played on her addiction to all things mint and chocolate and improvised on an Eton’s mess. I threw together layers of crumbled meringue, Chantilly cream, strawberries and raspberries and a layer of leftover brownies that I soaked in crème de menthe. It was really yummy and was a delightful surprise ending to my failed pies.  We ate it up gladly.

So here’s my poor metaphor. Life is like a trifle. You make plans, and things get messed up, and then something wonderful emerges from the wreck.

I know its clichéd, but I’m ready for the next adventure. I swing between terrified and excited. I have a few leads I’m hunting down and am so grateful for a chance to perhaps figure out some bigger stuff I’ve been wrestling with. I truly believe things happen in a natural unfolding, and life has been very kind to me so far, especially when I listen to my gut and just go for it.

Last week I was feeling blue one night and was walking along worried about what came next. Then I caught myself impulsively jumping in a puddle* and started grinning wide. I have big red boots. How can I NOT jump in puddles? They make such a lovely splash.

I was filled with complete joy at the sheer silliness. And moments like that let me know I’m going to be just fine.

* my last day is Monday the 23rd

*in a strictly non bearded old dude, but rather the universe is love, hippity dippity sort of way

* yes this was in public. And yes I’m 30 And no, miraculously I didn’t catch any poor unsuspecting fool in the spray. This time anyways, I’m pretty sure I’ve pissed the boy of royally by doing that to him at least once.

Confessions

I have Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth on my bedside table. I had to fend off my SIL inquiries about whether I was hiding a secret love child under my sweater (nope that bump’s a pasta baby) when I received yet another order of birth and pregnancy books from Amazon.

I am currently obsessed with all things child related. Damn biological clock (cue scene from My Cousin Vinnie with Marissa Tomei).

Until about three years ago, babies were not my thing. I would choose puppies over kids any day. The boy and I actually had to have a big Talk, since I was always ambivalent to negative about the idea of having kids, and he decidedly wanted them.

Actually what he really wants is minions. He wants to have a team of mini ninjas that do his bidding. He’s in for a rude awakening. Or I am. He wants me to watch the movie Kevin and lovingly predicts that as our future. (Brief synopsis, the little boy is a psychopath, mom always seems to know and feels that he’s out to get her, dad cheerily brushes her fears off and bonds with son. Son does indeed turn out to be a psychopath)

So I sat back and concluded that I probably wanted kids, but was scared of the type of parent I would become, and more importantly, afraid of the loss of identity that I assumed came with the role of motherhood.

And then because I was scared I did what I always do. I over thought. I researched. I obsessed.

I’m a fact finder by nature, so I armed myself with knowledge. And I found many alternatives to what I thought was the only way to do things. And I started getting excited about having kids (one day eventually, not yet damn it!).

Cue the pregnancy books, and obsessive blog reading by smart moms. And babies, actually started to look cute.