casual fridays: vol. 11

Finally! A Casual Fridays post! Just a few things that have caught my eye to perk up the kitchen...where I'll definitely be spending more time.

Source: elizabethw.com via mrs. on Pinterest

the rollercoaster ride

This space has been woefully neglected for over a month.

Real life, real responsibilities get in the way sometimes.

Six weeks ago the privately-held company for whom I work was purchased by a publicly traded corporation. Big changes, folks. Big changes. Now, there are earnings targets to make, quarterly earnings calls, Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, and shareholders and Wall Street analysts to work for. It's been non-stop for our four person accounting team (plus one intern). A steady stream of auditors, outside consultants, representatives from "corporate," and new performance metrics have been thrown into the mix of our already busy day-to-day schedules. Oh, and I'm still covering for a co-worker who's been gone for 5 months – the absence of whom has become so normalized that if they came back (which I doubt), I have no idea how I'd handle their reappearance. So much has changed in the last five months; how can you waltz back into work and simply resume your old responsibilities?

The constant motion of work generally left me feeling like this at the end of each day:

Of course, there's a house to keep in order. A husband's anxiety to quell. A needy cat to attend. Half marathon training. A Diana Kennedy anthology to cook. And Fany Gerson treats to bake.

Which is to say, documenting said after hours activities has been the last thing on my mind. Like I said, real life, real responsibilities.

But, I'm finally starting to get the hang of this whole time management thing*. I've also used this period of change to reflect on where I am work-wise. It's time to really get serious about things. It's time to focus on getting where I want to be. No one is stopping me and it's time I started blazing a trail forward. Not that many people stop by around these parts, but the content is going start leaning pretty heavily toward my culinary endeavors. The good, bad, and as always shabbily photographed.

*If only I could stop being a lazy accountant and do my damn income taxes already.
**And of course the title of this post has a reference.