Sunday, November 14, 2010

Tents, Eating, Sadness (tents eating sadness!? oh my!)

Greetings from AZ! I'm happy to say the permanent tent has been up for several days now and everyone absolutely loves it. Laura (of Laura and Randy Wise - my bosses) did an amazing job of arranging and decorating everything. I will hopefully have more pictures up for you soon, so you can see our progress.

I am less excited to tell you that my eating habits have reverted back to what we'll call the 'college era' diet, relying primarily on boxed goods of the breakfast variety. However, Pat will be spending four days with me around Thanksgiving, and I'm hoping to try out squash for the first time (John Henry - do you have any advice for simple things I could do to make it more tasty?), and perhaps a few other things. Even if I'm not eating the greatest, though, I certainly still am learning a lot about food - and loving it! Laura knows a bazillion easy recipes for all the food we sell and I love picking her brain about apple sauces, pumpkin butter, zucchini bread, etc.

Today I got the very, very sad news that a classmate of mine from kindergarden through graduation died in a car accident. His name was Travis Rearden, and although we didn't keep in touch after graduation, people tend to have special places in your heart after 15 years together. That, and my ongoing worries over Joe Johnson (he's recovering from a rock climbing fall) really threw my morning for a loop. Well, and also my stomach isn't happy about something I ate last night. So I was a little quiet at work today and Laura asked if anything was wrong and ended up letting me take the rest of the day off - I am VERY thankful to be working for these two wonderful, understanding people!

In any case, the news about Travis reminded me that we never knew when we'll go, and it's important to be making the most of everything. I've had a couple of rough days here and there when the distance between me and everything that is dear to me seemed to be a bit much. But, the sad news of the day put some things into better perspective; I feel good that I've taken this plunge, that I'm seeing and learning new things, and making the most of opportunities.

Here is Joe's mailing address - even if you don't know him well, I urge you to send him a quick pick-me-up. He is a very incredible individual and about the closest thing I have to a brother - I'd love it if we could flood his mailbox with encouragement.

PO Box 642
Tonasket, WA 98855

3 comments:

  1. Hey Cait!

    Always add brown sugar! and butter!

    John suggests, taking out squash, mixing it with blue cheese, pine nuts, and wrapping it in a home made semolina pasta ( like ravioli) then boiling it in a light sea salt bath, finally grating a light romanian cheese on top, and serving with mixed green salad. Marry with a bottle of merlow, from 2005.

    I say, haha! just add brown sugar and butter girl!


    Also, sad days when your minutes have gone over!
    maybe we will send our phone with pat with 700 roll over minutes and you could help us by using them all up for us over thanksgiving (seriously) and then pat could bring it back. just a great idea.

    if we were to convince pat to carry and care package, what do you dream of????

    love and hugs!

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  2. Hey Leah! Thanks for squash info! I'll let you know how it turns out. :) If you and John are dying to get rid of some phone minutes, that sounds like a pretty great plan to me - as long as you're SURE you won't need the phone yourselves for those four days. And as for the care package... hmmm, the only thing that comes to mind is something small and edible that Pat and I can enjoy (and think of you!) with our Thanksgiving dinner. Everything edible that comes from your kitchen is to die for! :) Love ya!

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  3. I'm sorry Caitlin. :( Hang in there. We'll all be here when you get back!

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