A New Chapter

So yesterday afternoon I found myself among friends at the winery on a purely social visit, sitting beneath the veranda as the sun set with a glass of Cabernet and catching up with everyone. One friend is going through a difficult divorce and was passing her phone around so we could see pictures the new house she just purchased, which she'll be working on to make totally hers, reflecting her new life.

I will be starting a new life of my own soon, in a wonderful way. I will be moving on from the tasting room in order to manage our Chef's Garden at the winery. Oh, I'll still probably jump in behind the bar on special occasions like festival weekends, but my energy and work hours will now be focused on making our winery garden both productive and a lovely place to look at as customers enjoy our wine and stroll the property.

There comes a time when everyone needs a bit of a change-up; in the three years I've worked at the winery it's been "discovered,"  we've have won numerous (well-deserved) awards, and the restaurant has also recieved numerous write-ups and high praise (also well-deserved). These are all great things to be sure, but the result is that my workplace has become twice as busy as when I started, and unfortunately I'm not half as young to go along with that. 

While everyone has been pleased as punch with my job performance as a tasting room attendant, I knew that I would not last through another hot summer (most our our work takes place outside in summer, in the heat of the afternoons) out pouring wine, schlepping plates and helping serve food, and I had all but determined that my last day would be the end of June, regardless of whether or not I had another job to go to.

But that made me very sad, as I love my bosses, coworkers and customers, I count good friends among them all and it would have broken my heart to leave.

But providence threw down a blessing this week in the form of this job offer, and so beginning in April I will be out in the garden at the winery in the cool mornings, making it a place you want to be -- to stand in, to walk around, and of course enjoy the products of in your lunchtime meal.

So here's to moving out -- out into a new life, and in my case, out into the garden, a place I seem destined to inhabit in one form or another. And now there will be double posts on growing and wine country life,  both from home and work. I really think I'm going to enjoy this new view from my "office," just a few yards from the tasting room, but where the breezes blow and the seedlings grow.

Can you tell I can't wait to get started?