Lunches The Last Two Weeks - Oops

Bad Yennifer. I have excellent reasons for my tardiness though, I swear! 

Last week, I had an event (honestly, the very best part of my job), so there was the mad rush to get it all together, then the event, then the mad rush to clean up, thank, collate, etc. 

I'm going to gush a bit about it, so bear with me, I will get to the recipes, etc. I promise! There was a luncheon and then also a panel, in which I partnered with The Office of Military and Veterans Services at my university. The events last week were actually the second time in seven months in which we've partnered with them, so I think part of my enjoyment of the planning portion was, we recreated certain elements from an event in September, and with most of the same people on board, there wasn't a lot of rushing before hand. 

Anyhoo, our special guest speaker is one of the most amazing young women I've ever met (and brag, I've met some really incredible young people in my time in Higher Education....). Captain Jenna Grassbaugh is finishing her Juris Doctorate, and will join JAG after she graduates next month. She is also a Captain in the U.S. Army, and sadly, for being so young, a Gold Star wife. 

Here's the kicker: Jenna took the insurance money she received from her husband's death, and started an endowment fund, which provides legal assistance to veterans. They don't have to be affiliated with my university in any way to receive the assistance and/or don't have to be combat veterans - simply have served their country in any possible way, and need help. And the law school here is working to match her original endowment amount. 

WOW. Talk about impact. Talk about a perspective moment.
And holy flarking follow-up: she enjoyed it enough to write about it herself. I.am.speechless.

My personal lexicon.

I am writing this at the request of one of my favoritest 'Shire peeps, Stephanie, who thinks my lexicon is both hilarious and ridiculous.

Stephanie's disbelief in my lexicon started when she was telling me about her poopy day and I uttered, to be the supportive, loving, caring friend that of course I am: "You poor poochie pot!". She stopped what she was going to say, looked at me like my hair was on fire and stated emphatically, "That is NOT a word". Um, yeah, it is, chica. Yeah, it is. In my world.

I feel like I've always had my own lexicon. Some of it comes from having the variety of brain which combines words, i.e. I will think of two words - for example nice and cute - and the word that it audibly uttered is cice, because at the last possible moment, I couldn't decide which word I wanted to use most so took parts of both words. Or when instead of saying, "That really hit the spot", it came out as "That really hot the spit". 

Side note: sometimes the combining of words comes out in your favor because you create a wonderful new word in the process. For instance fabulous and fantastic becomes fantabulous. Which is a seriously cool word, amirite? Useful in many situations.

What to do with a LOT of fresh tomatoes.

I work for (and matriculated from) a large public university in the Midwest. It's very proud of the THE in its name and worships a poisonous nut. But is also large enough (both in terms of geographical acreage and students/employees) that is does a great job of leveraging its size for the good of its students and employees. 

One of the many benefits available to me as a staff member is easy access to a Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA) program. There are actually three CSAs to choose from: fruits and veggies, meats and/or dairy. At this point, I participate in just the fruit and veggie program, which is once a week delivery for 24 weeks, basically from May to October. 

Since my household is just me and The Spouse, I get the small bag which generally has about 5-6 types of items - but no choice as to what. That's cool - so far it's all been stuff I know. Just one week we got a kohlrabi. That was interesting.