Proud Member of the Costco Generation

I've made regular trips to Costco for over 20 years now. When the kids were little, I bought gallon drums of applesauce, gazillion-packs of fruit snacks, and mega-packs of mac and cheese. A trip to Costco in those days was an all-day event consisting of two infant seats, a stroller and a hand-holding (ha!) toddler, lunch for five at the Costco food court (total bill: $4.97!), two hours in the store (including tantrums, samples galore and a few trips to the bathroom), and then at least a few hours -- including interruptions -- to put everything away. In those days, most of the food I bought at Costco would be considered "ingredients" because almost all our meals were made "from scratch."

Fast-forward to these days. I still go to Costco almost weekly, but the trips are very different. I'm almost always alone and I have the choice of a quick, purposeful grocery shopping trip or a leisurely, "ohhh-look-at-this!" excursion. (The latter are, of course, more dangerous and usually far more expensive.) Instead of "ingredients," my purchases these days are more along the lines of quick, flexible -- yet non-fast-food -- meal options. Whereas I always knew for certain back then how many people I'd be feeding for dinner, these days I have no idea who will be home for dinner on any given night. Between kids' jobs and their active social lives, we could have as many as seven and as few as two for dinner. And until the moment comes to sit down, I usually have no idea which way our evening meal will go! In fact, it's not even entirely unheard of for Tom and I sit down to eat, and before we're done we've set three or four more plates at the table!

So when I shop for food these days I need to look for stuff I can make quickly (because I don't get home till 7-ish) and stuff that can be eaten in one sitting or over the span of a few days, as leftovers. So every weekend I pick up a few things at Costco that fit the current "dinner requirements." Then I fill up the tank so I don't have to worry about getting gas at 6 AM near home or at 6 PM in downtown Seattle.

Speaking of downtown Seattle (and my job), I was treated to a little "talking-to" by my boss the other day. After a bit of a discussion about things I have yet to learn ("come to Jesus" comes to mind!), he asked me not to post personnel issues on my blog. (He knew I have one, which I'm fine with; I had shown him the photo of the leaf). Of course I feel badly -- even though neither my name nor our company's name is anywhere on my blog, so I don't think anyone easily could find my blog via an informed search. But still. My bad. So while I will still likely post stuff about my life as a career woman (I can't not!) , I won't be posting anything more personal than peripheral stuff -- like a gazillion pictures of the view from my office! You'll get sick of it: the Space Needle in the rain, sun, snow... at night, in the early morning... winter, spring, summer, fall... with bird poop on the window (see picture!)... (Hey, don't laugh -- I know of blogs that consist entirely of that sort of thing!) But I will say -- and I hope this is OK -- that we're done with interviews and are well on our way to a complete staff! Where it was just three of us a month ago, our office will reach a population of nine within the next two weeks. Hiring a smart, cohesive team of people who support each other, learn from each other and teach each other -- and people who are a fit with the office culture we hope to establish -- has been really important to me and I think we've done that. Interviewing and hiring are exhausting and very time-consuming, but I can't think of anything more important to the success of a business than establishing a fabulous team. I'd love to take a picture of our final team. Can I, boss? Huh? Pretty please? :-)