Anniversary time

Tomorrow I celebrate my 5 year anniversary at work. Seems like only a few weeks ago I started there and it's hard to believe I'm looking at retirement at the end of the year. I'm very fortunate to have the great boss that I have. Char believes in hiring good people and then leaving them alone to do their jobs. Only once before have I had a boss as good as Char. I was speaking with him once about a family I was working with, expressing doubt that I was doing a good job with them. Mark just looked at me and said, "Of course, you can do this. I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't think you were capable." What a beautiful thing for me to hear--that your supervisor has complete faith in your ability! Wow! Well , Char's the same way and I have blossomed under both Mark's and her supervision.

I also have a great team of co-workers by my side everyday. All of us do somewhat different jobs, and we all do them very well. There are a couple of co-workers who irritate me at times, but, Hey! I'm not complaining! To work with a very competent team with only occasional irritants is a very good thing. There's always someone who rubs you the wrong way--we just have to deal with it, right? Most of the time, one or the other is cracking a joke or doing something to make us laugh. I've had other people who work in the building say they wish their departments did things together like we do. We've been bicycling and canoeing together, gone to theater and movies together. We have a pot luck every month and we have some really great cooks! No, I can't complain about my co-workers.

So, to celebrate, I'm bringing cake for everyone. I always make my cakes from scratch and there are several kinds that the gang at work particularly like. For this anniversary, I couldn't decide what kind of cake to bring and then it dawned on me--It's MY celebration so I made MY favorite cake. I've always liked carrot cake with pineapple and pecans and a cream cheese frosting. No calories in that cake! After my first child was born, I was breastfeeding him and was hungry all the time. I knew I had to "eat healthy" so I chose carrot cake. While I was breast feeding him full time, I consumed an entire 9x13 carrot cake every week--for snacks! The best thing is, I kept losing weight like crazy! Well, that all stopped when the baby started eating solids and I kept eating cake! To this day I love carrot cake and every year, I plan on making one for my birthday cake and I never do. So, for this anniversary celebration, it's carrot cake!