What a beautiful mess :)

I just had one of the most wonderful days of work I've ever had today. Just one of those days where you feel like, ya know, I know life's not perfect, but I've just got this feeling deep down that this is right where I am supposed to be.

We had a press meeting at my boss's house today. It was beautiful--I know that might sound crazy seeing as how it IS work that I am describing, but, honestly, at the moment, I can't think of a better way of describing the day.

I didn't have to be at work until 10 am this morning, which is a whole 2 hours later than I usually get to work, so I felt like I had a couple of extra hours this morning, which for someone who frequently feels like there just isn't enough time, was awesome! Being the crazy person that I am though, did I decide to sleep in? No, of course not, I decided to wake up an hour an a half earlier than I usually do to go take a 5:30am spin class. Yes, I am crazy, I know. I was seriously questioning myself at 4:45 am as I got dressed, but once I got to spin, I was so happy that I went...great workout, and best part of all, by 6:30 am it was done and I was free for the rest of the day! I love getting my workout out of the way in the morning, it just frees up the rest of the day!

So back to the bigger point of this post. As I started to say, we had a press meeting at my boss's house today. It was just the core group; me, my boss, our graphic designer, our digital coordinator and our book production manager. With layoffs, a new communications director, and lots of new outsourcing this summer, our little press has basically re-invented itself this summer and my boss called this meeting to give us all a chance to sit down and work out the nitty gritty details of our production process so that we could all be on the same page and be sure to be as efficient as possible as we have about 7 quick to market books in the pipeline for the fall this year.

We spent the day going through each step of our production process, hanging up big post it note posters (thanks for the suggestion Lindsey--my boss loved them!), scribbling all over them, layering them on top of each other, scribbling some more, assembling them into a logical order, scribbling a bit more and then by the end of the day coming out with a lovely "recipe" for success for producing our books :). Very productive day.

Marshall and Jennifer scribbling on our posters.

More posters waiting to be scribbled on.

And of course since we were meeting at my boss's house and since my boss is an AWESOME chef, baker and gardener, she treated us to a delicious lunch, made with lots of fresh ingredients from her own backyard garden. We had a delicious salad with tomatoes and basil from her garden, chicken and pesto pasta, made of course with basil from the garden :), ginger ale passion fruit spritzers and delicious fig bars (with figs from her tree) for dessert.

Our beautiful table.

Cutting basil in the garden.

Roasted tomatoes for sauce from the garden.

Gorgeous salad isn't it?!

Pesto Pasta

These were sooooo refreshing, ginger ale and passion fruit puree (from whole foods) spritzers.

Fig bars with the fig tree behind them :).

My fav. part of the lunch was that we all helped to prepare it together in the kitchen. There is something so soul satisfying to me about preparing food with other people, and then when your boss asks you to go pick some basil from the garden...sheesh, how much better can you get? I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. Oh how I dream of being able to walk out to the garden to pick ingredients that I am going to prepare a meal with! One day, one day---I'm going to have that garden! Oooh and a fun side note - at the end of the day, we all made a special batch of ALMOND pesto (made specially since I am allergic to pine nuts in normal pesto sauce) together, with my boss as our teacher.

Taking notes as Jennifer shows us her Pesto recipe.

The basil, garlic, almonds and cheese ready to be turned into pesto.

It was as delicious as it looks!

This is pesto people, get your minds out of the gutter!

All through the day as I was sitting and talking about work and life with these wonderful people, I just kept thinking that it felt so right to be a part of this group and that I am so blessed to have found a place with such amazing co - workers. Don't get me wrong, work isn't always a bunch of peaches n cream, there were points during this summer amidst all the craziness that led up to this meeting, when I was tearing my hair out, going in on weekends and feeling just plain ol' ready to snap beacause I was stressed to the max, but in the end I feel so fortunate to be in a place where I feel like I am growing and being challenged and supported and heard :). My co workers are amazing people, they are not only knowledgeable about what they do, they are incredibly generous in their willingness to share their knowledge ( I must have asked a million and one questions today and they answered every single one!). And it doesn't stop there, they are also such interesting people outside of the office, each one is a vibrant person with lots of interests and hobbies and lots of life wisdom that they are willing to share and I feel like I learn things from them every day :). I left our meeting today feeling completely inspired, not only by work, but by life.

While life is a bit messy these days, let's face it, I'm not rolling in anywhere near 6 figures and I'm 27, single, and living with a family, I'd have to say that between the family I have at work and the "family" I have at home, my life may be a bit of a mess, but lately it's feeling like a pretty beautiful mess :).


Happy Labor day weekend everyone!