another reminder

Another reminder of why I like my job:

Nice gestures of gratitude like this remind me of aspects of my job that I enjoy the most. We had a new employee that moved to Boston from Montreal over the weekend start on Monday, and while trying to get her tax forms processed I realized that she would have to apply for a social security number. Instead of sending her out on her own to the social security administration office in Davis Square, I offered to drive her there only to find out that the wait to be seen would take over an hour. I reluctantly left her there after she convinced me she'd be okay (amongst some of Somerville's finest ... sketchy is all I will say) and she luckily managed to find her way back to our office later that afternoon.

During the drive there, I mentioned that we have a group of rather competitor bakers at the office and how we have monthly baking contests. And then I came in on Tuesday morning to find this sweetly hand-written note and a delicious cookie inside. She remembered our conversation about baked goods!

Again, another reminder of the fact that I have some pretty awesome coworkers. :)

signs of sunny spring days

Ahhh, I do love spring time in New England, although it has been rather hot and humid lately. With the first day of summer around the corner (June 21st!), I've been appreciating these signs of sunny spring days ...

snails out and about after a rainstorm

a bunch of beautiful hydrangeas in a cool mason jar left on my desk at work from an awesome coworker (I brought them home to enjoy over the weekend)

the incredible selection of flowers and plants at Ricky's Flower Market in Somerville (I bought one of the little sunflower plants for my green thumb husband)

a refreshing way to cool off during on hot days: a yummy cocktail at the Independent (this is a lovely Blueberry Dorchester made with blueberry vodka and cucumber lemonade ... de-lish!)

Enjoy the spring while you can ... before you know it, the heat of the summer will be here! :)

lunch on the green

There is a huge patch of grass next to our building at work. It's usually taken over by flocks of geese and a family of groundhogs (I think that's what they are), but lately it has been used for games of cricket and lunchtime escapes from the office. I figured the office would be pretty empty on the Friday before a long weekend so I organized a last-minute lunch on the green outing with some of my coworkers. I brought a couple of picnic type blankets to spread out on the grass for us but alas, there was a perfectly good [empty] table waiting for us when we got outside. So we decided to hang out there instead, plus it was better for the two cakes.

Photo taken by my coworker, Tom. Yes, that's the Cambridge jail behind us.

Two cakes? Yes. Two.

My coworker (and extremely talented baker), Jeff, and I had a conversation about cake suggestions earlier this week for a party he was supposed to go to on Friday. I described (and later gave him the recipe for) a cake idea I saw in the Rachael Ray magazine where this woman baked a cake in a jelly roll pan so that it was an extremely thin cake and only took about 15 minutes in the oven. Then she cut it up into rectangles and stacked them with frosting in between. So Jeff went all out and created a beautiful and tall cake made with layers of vanilla and chocolate cake, and iced with a decadent mocha chocolate frosting. The only problem was that the party was cancelled. Errr, not so much a problem for me and my coworkers because we got to enjoy his wonderful creation.

I went ahead and made a cake similar to the one I found the recipe to (read more about it here) but I was thrown off by how she only called for 1/2 a cup of flour so I decided to use my trustworthy How to Cook Everything cookbook by Mark Bittman instead. I used the cream cheese and lemon curd recipe from the article though, and I think it turned out fantastic.

What a fun way to spend a lunch break at work with some of my favorite coworkers. :)

the friday before a long weekend

This totally made my day today, the Friday before a long weekend, where everyone else in the office managed to leave early but I was there till the end (okay, 4:56 pm ... close enough to 5:00!). Our shuttle driver, Arben, came up for coffee and left me this note when I wasn't at my desk. Super sweet!

Hope you all have a nice long weekend too!

making valentines

My coworker came up with a great idea: making valentines at work! So we both pulled together some of our crafting supplies, booked one of the conference rooms last Wednesday, and let our coworkers drop in anytime during a three-hour period to make valentines. It was such a great success! We work with some really creative folks, and it was fun to see what people came up with.

I divided up some card bases, envelopes, stickers, glue, ribbon, and decorative scissors amongst three tables and set aside some rubber stamps, ink pads, paper scraps, and foam self-adhesive conversation hearts (found those at Michael's) for people to use.



Here are some of my coworkers busy making their valentines ...


And here are some of the beautiful cards that people made (click the photo to enlarge it so you can see the pretty details) ...

I found one on my desk later that afternoon, pictured here next to Pistachio ...

And speaking of my desk, there's been a new addition (see the cute striped fella) ... Gus Gus. He's made friends with Spike.

It's funny because I feel like we're so much more festive around this holiday than we were back during Christmastime. I guess there's a lot of love to be shared right now, which is a good thing. :)

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

... especially on my desk at work!

I picked up this cute little mouse at Crate & Barrel a couple of weeks ago because I just couldn't resist. Isn't he cute? He has brothers made out of the same material in other colors too, but I thought this brown was a perfect shade. Anyway, he's standing next to this cute little coffee mug that someone at work brought back for me from his trip to Chicago (during a two-hour flight delay).

And this morning my coworker, the ever-so-talented Karoline, walked in and presented me with one of her adorable hand glove creations:

Isn't he adorable??! (Yes, we've been telling her for a long time that she needs to sell these on Etsy ...) I don't know why I assume it's a he. It just looks like a he to me. He's very cute, that's for sure. I should take a picture of his tail for you, but that might be border-line glove rabbit x-ratedness.

Okay, going from one extreme to another ... going from something cute to something, um, let's just say interesting.


Yes. That is an inflatable fruitcake. And as it says on the website where you can order it, "It's festive, it's traditional and it's inedible - just like the real thing." Ha! I've never been a fan of fruitcake myself (although my mother and sister both love it) so I didn't mind putting up this vinyl version for decoration on my desk. (And no, I didn't purchase this!)

Of course, the candy bowl had to be updated to represent the holiday season. I tried to be a little more PC with this so I did half red and green, and half white and blue. I think it turned out pretty good actually.


And last but not least, the same person who bought me the candy cane striped coffee mug a week ago left these two CDs of holiday tunes for me. The first one, as you can see, is the A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. The second one's title cracks me up ... Holiday Lounge: The Christmas Mixes ... I can't wait to see what's on that one.

Christmastime is definitely in the air here! Now on to completing some shopping ...

super sweet coworkers

As many of you know, we took a two week vacation and flew out to the west coast. Hence, a lag in blog posts, but alas! Once I sort through the gazillion photos we took, I'll be sure to post something interesting very soon. :)

Look at what some of my super sweet coworkers created for me while I was away:

Talk about such a nice surprise when I walked in on Monday morning! It definitely made returning from a long vacation a little easier. That and when someone reminded me that we have a 3-day work week next week. Thanks, ladies! :)

sweetness

It's so nice to come back from a three-day-weekend to a surprise on my desk. (Trust me, it really is!) Did I tell you how lucky I am sometimes to have such sweet coworkers? Really really.

As if the concept of a surprise wasn't enough, look at the beautiful wrapping job that she did, especially with two seashells attached to the ribbon! Seriously, too awesome.

But then the cookies. The cookies! Scrumptious! Ginger cookies. Mmmmmmmm ...

Sooooo good. Laura, you really do spoil me. Thank you. :)

funny, nice + awesome

I wasn't sure how to name this post so I used the three adjectives that came to mind when I thought of the three photos I wanted to share.

Funny:

Someone put their sunglasses on my cluster of veggies on the counter this morning. And then someone said, "Anything is funny when you put sunglasses on them." Someone. (Actually, the photo reminds me of this book.)

Nice:

I found this bag of fresh basil from my coworkers' garden on my desk this morning after we had a conversation yesterday about how abundantly it grows for them. I told her that I think they have magical soil because they grow exquisite peonies, and one of our coworkers mentioned their basil plant. Wow, this was such a nice surprise to find this morning and it really made my day. I can't wait to make a delicious pesto with it.

Awesome:

You know you're a geek when you make your coworker pose for a headless shot of her sweater with big, funky and cool buttons. I couldn't get over how cute Laura's sweater is! She got it at Anthropologie and said that it was made by a designer in Denmark. It's made out of felt and I just love the shape of the sleeves. So of course, I made her pose for this picture.

So that was my Thursday in three words.

nice coworkers

I have to say, I do have some very nice coworkers. My new role at our new office location kind of has me in a 50/50 split between being an HR Coordinator and as the front desk receptionist, so I get quite a lot of exposure to staff members that I normally didn't get to see in person in the Fogg basement. So once in a while it's really nice to see a surprise on my desk ... a few recent examples ...

One coworker (who, sadly isn't with us anymore) left me this note after I helped her do something. I can't even remember what exactly I did, but it felt good to know she appreciated the assistance. Plus, this really made me smile.

I had a conversation with one coworker (which I seem to do a lot of being in this position, physically ...) about how her roommate works at Starbucks, how it was one of my all-time favorite jobs, and what we usually order (how I can't do the vanilla latte anymore because of allergy issues, etc.). Low and behold, a couple of days later I came back from my lunch break to find a freshly made latte waiting for me on my desk, made exactly the way I had described to her during the conversation. Not only was I touched by the fact that she thought of me while she was out running her errands, but I was so elated that she was actually listening to our conversation. This woman seriously has a big heart.

And then there is my Pocky friend, EK. I found this on my desk one morning and literally laughed out loud. Tiramisu flavored Pocky! Brilliant!!

Then last week, I heard that one of our coworkers went up to the Burdick chocolate cooking school in New Hampshire. She had a blast! I can only imagine how much fun that was. So after I talked to her about it one afternoon, the next morning I found these two beautifully handmade chocolates on my desk. Aren't they gorgeous?! She said that they were made with figs soaked in port, anise, and hazelnut cream ... yummy!! Such a sweet gesture. And by the way, if/when I win the lottery jackpot, she will have to be the head chocolate maker and teach us all her neat tricks.

And then this morning I found two nice things on my desk, one of which was this lovely jar of strawberry jelly from Cabot's Confections in Cape Cod. The deputy director's assistant was out last week on vacation and so I helped take care of his calendar and set up meetings while he was gone. It was so thoughtful of him to bring back this little token of appreciation.

Last but not least, I found this letter on my desk this morning from Jess after we had cat sitted (cat sat? is that proper?) for them last week. I love receiving handwritten notes, and the two little cat stickers on the envelope just made me giggle.

So again, I do have some wonderfully sweet coworkers. A nice thought for a Monday.