Making a move and my awesome salad

Hello Crushers!

Today is the last day that I had to pack a lunch for my full-time job with the international medical society that I work for. Tomorrow we are all going out to lunch as a treat, so this is it. I'm sure I will pack a million more lunches in my lifetime between traveling, camping, Steve and our kids. That's a lot of PBJ!

This morning I rushed around the kitchen getting last minute things done (yes, I had to touch up my toe-nail polish) and making my lunch. I did not think very hard about doing it. Mostly this was my inner thought process: I should take an apple. And some cantaloupe before the cantaloupe goes bad. Take the last piece of string cheese - hope Steve doesn't mind! Oh, there's that lettuce from the garden. Steve is going to pick more lettuce, so I should eat that up. What to put on the lettuce? Cucumbers from the farmer's market? OK! Ooooh! There's leftover chicken from last night's Asian Ginger Chicken (Wildtree)! Score! Do I have time to slice a tomato? No. Bummer."

My tomato-less salad.

I will be making a career change to stay at home mom (SAHM)/part-time professor/something new that I'll tell you about soon. The last time I changed jobs, I had more of a "See ya! Don't get between me and the door!" feeling. I was burned out and needed something new. Four years later and I am married with a baby and a much healthier me! I can only imagine what the next four years are going to look like!

This is why I have mixed emotions about leaving my job. I enjoy the people I work with and the tasks I do. I have been able to travel to far-off, exciting places and eat incredible foods (kangaroo anyone?). However, I get to be home more as Ellie's mama, and you can't beat that.

For the men and women who have to work or choose to work and can't be home, I am impressed by everything you do for your family. For the full-time and part-time stay-at-home moms and dads, I'm impressed by everything you do for your family. I'm not judging anyone; this is just what works best for our family at this time. I'm sure you're doing the same.

Before the school year starts again and I go back to being Prof. W, we are going to take some time to relax up at our cabin. My dad is getting to build his dream garage up there and we will be there to help (and shop and swim and fish!). It's the perfect place to recharge out batteries. Hopefully, I will have another career move to share with you soon. More on that later. For now, I'm going to enjoy my salad and stop being so contemplative because really, it's a salad. It's not the first and won't be the last. Plus, I got stuff to do!

In the meantime, here is how I made the chicken:
I followed the recipe for Grilled Asian Ginger Chicken and made it into a freezer meal. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the veggies thawed out. They weren't soggy like I thought they would be. Instead of grilling them because we ran out of time, we just cooked them in a frying pan on the stovetop. They were DELICIOUS with some brown rice and frozen sherbert for dessert. Yum!