Will and I unexpectedly spent the last week in Seattle with his family for a health emergency (everyone is okay). While I was bummed not to go home to Tahoe after three and a half weeks in Chile, it was nice to get some extra time with his parents and grandparents and extended family.

Unsurprisingly, I consider my biggest accomplishment of the week to be making dinner for 14 people, which included a bowl of guacamole almost as big as the one I made for my birthday celebration in Chile.

My second-biggest accomplishment was making white- and dark-chocolate covered raspberries for dessert one night, just before discovering exactly the same thing at a grocery store in Seattle. The back story is that one of my very favorite things in Chile is the pint-sized tub of chocolate-covered frozen raspberries I can buy at the specialty grocery store, but I had never seen anything similar in the US until this past week. I have to admit that the Chilean version (franuí) is definitely superior, so I still have a reason to go back to South America. But the homemade version was more than enough work and I’d settle for buying the mediocre ones (trü frü) in the store from here on out.

Since a list of two things feels insufficient, my third accomplishment of the week was making a new feline friend. Charlie is a wonderfully fluffy work companion but sucks at typing.

Because of the Seattle trip, I have now been home for a total of 20 hours in the last 34 days. I arrived in Tahoe at 8pm on Sunday night, slept for ten hours (extended travel will do that to you), and left again at 4pm on Monday to go to the San Francisco bay area for a couple days of onsite work.

Things I accomplished in the 10 awake hours in Tahoe (in chronological order):

  • climbed for two hours at my favorite gym
  • shoveled the driveway
  • replaced one of the mattresses in the house
  • made a glorious blueberry-chocolate-banana smoothie
  • unpacked three giant suitcases and one backpack
  • did a load of laundry
  • repacked a duffel and a backpack
  • decided where in the house to hang some new art
  • changed out the queen-size bedframe in our bedroom
  • got a bag of clothes together to donate to goodwill
  • made some some avocado toast

I am fully aware that choosing to live in Tahoe means that I will be traveling a lot both for work and to see family in addition to any fun travel we do, but the whirlwind does seem to turn into a tornado sometimes. Fingers crossed things will calm down after the next week or so.

Spoiler alert: they won’t. Calm is but an illusion in this stormy existence. Next month includes multiple visits by friends and family (hi mom), another week in the bay for work, and potentially even a short Chile trip at the end of the month. But living in Tahoe is still the dream and I wouldn’t have it any other way.