Life 2.1

…I’ve been here for years.” — LL Cool J.

Wise, yet oddly appropriate words. It’s no secret that upon finishing up school, I moved back to Napa from San Diego and started working in the wine business. And now, after a year hiatus, I’m back in it. This time on the sales side and working from The Boot. I’ve only been back in the business for 3 days but hopefully I can pick up where I left off.

I’m still getting back into my groove but I’m feeling pretty positive. I don’t think I can honestly devote a whole post to the new job because I still learning the ropes but there will be more to come.

Also, I have been without internet access for almost a week so my bad for not posting a Get Meaningful Fridays installment.

In other news, I will be returning to California later in the week and I can’t wait for that. I fly in Thursday and will be making a beeline for Taqueria Rosita, which reminds me…my dad told me I could submit a menu of meals that I would like to have upon my return home for consideration. I should get on that.

It will probably include the following:

Taqueria, Lawler’s (because I love me some ravioli and malfatti), Red Rock burgers…and my mom and dad are having the family over one of the nights and it goes without saying that we will have butter and garlic marinated tri-tip, which is kinda making me drool a little, not gonna lie.

This tri-tip is so good that one time during Christmas break, I returned from college and worked at an insurance office where I had worked over the previous summer and at the end of the holiday, my boss gave me gift certificates to Browns Valley Market (a small, specialty mom-and-pop market) where the aforementioned trip-tip is sold. The day before I packed my car to return to San Diego for school, I went an purchased 5 butter and garlic tri-tips and froze them. Prior to my departure, I packed them on ice in my cooler and hauled them back to San Diego, kept them frozen and had one a couple weeks later for my 21st birthday. It was awesome.

If I remember correctly, I also froze one once, packed it on ice in my carry-on and took it on the hour flight back to SD before. I imagine that the person scanning my carry-on at the security line was slightly alarmed but never did anything. The tri-tips are that good.

But along with that tri-tip also comes getting to see my whole family. We’re talking aunts, uncles and cousins here, people. I’m very excited at this prospect because I haven’t seen all of us together since Christmas Eve and even then I don’t think we were all there. I plan on taking lots of pictures. Including one giant cousins picture, so when I say I have a lot of cousins I have pictorial evidence to back me up.

Expect pictures soon.

4 Comments | In: Delicious-flavored foods, Life in the boot-shaped state, Social Adventures | tags: family, menu planning, Napa, Napa restaurants, tri-tip, wine. | #

Merry Christmas! I got to see (most of) my family last night for Christmas Eve and have successfully posted all the photos on shutterfly. Here’s a few in the meantime. Hope Santa was good to everyone!

Cousins

They always congregate in the kitchen

Katie and me

holding it down in the kitchen: Aunt Lizzie and me

Technically only the two standing are my brothers but I have been known to refer to others as such

Me and Megan

Ted and Uncle Possum

My brosefs

The fam

Me and the boys

CC, me and Megan

My dad and me

2 Comments | In: Social Adventures | tags: Christmas Eve, family, holiday. | #

In case anyone was wondering what I do when it snows/rains/sleets, the answer is easy. I hole up in the Nook. Thus, the products of a no-work-but-it’s-cold-outside weekend (click the image for the full size):

And because apparently I never posted Thanksgiving 2007, here’s those as well:

4 Comments | In: Scraptastic Stuff | tags: Christmas, Christmas Eve, family, photos, scrapbooking, Thanksgiving. | #

I think today was the hardest day since I have been here. Today was Thanksgiving and everyone is home but I’m here. Today is a day when I wish that teleporting was invented. Though I never really fessed up to it in order to avoid a cheesy-ness factor, at my family holiday parties and get togethers, there always seemed to be a moment when I would take it all in and think to myself, ‘wow. Look at all of us. Being a part of this is something special because not everyone has a family like mine. We all get along and cousins are more like siblings.’ I have always been pretty proud of my family and everyone’s accomplishments. Not just in my own immediate world, but looking at all that both sets of grandparents created. It’s something pretty unique and I’m lucky to be a part of it. Luckily I haven’t ever had to miss it.

But today I do.

I was fortunate enough to have one of the coaches open up his home and I shared Thanksgiving with him and his family and cooked with his wife, which made the day a bit easier, but while it was the next best thing to being with my own family, it wasn’t home.

About three years ago, I started reading KA’s blog because she was a scrapbooker with very lovely layouts that I often scrap-lifted. Today, I read her latest posting, an installment of ‘Thursday This’ in which she lists her favorite things. Today, she listed all the things for which she is thankful and I’m feeling inspired to do the same.

I’m thankful for:

For my dad, who taught me to be strong and independent and for making sure I always have all the tools to succeed, like a new set of golf clubs, and for helping me with adult things like 401(k)s and IRA rollovers.                                                                                                              

For my mom, who always listens and advises, sends me text message football game updates and for always answering the phone when I have a cooking question.                         

For my brothers, who send me text messages to tell me that they miss me and their selfless offers to eat my leftovers.                                                                            

For Cindy, who is the big sister that I didn’t have and who I sometimes call just so I can hear her ringback tone of the the Napa High fight song. I really do.                                             

I am very fortunate and I have a lot for which to be thankful, including my bed and the Aunt Maggie pillows on which I’m about to lay my head.

5 Comments | In: Social Adventures, Thoughts & Ponderings | tags: family, friends, thankful, Thanksgiving. | #