Pumpkin Time!

Dear Reader,

Not all hours are created equal. This week for me has been filled with work. Our team has a big project in December that we already must devote much of our attention to. Even this week, we met for a few hours on Sunday, because we just wouldn’t have had the time to work on this specific issue on a weekday. 

With busy work schedules, my boyfriend and I have hardly had any time to have a real conversation. I go to sleep super early (around 9:30pm) and wake up super early (around 5:30am) and he goes to sleep hours later than me and wakes up hours later than me. Since we both work during the day (and he is at the office later than me on all days), we just are not able to have reliable quality time during the week. For example, my mom texted me on Monday to ask about my boyfriend and my plans for our scheduled visit. I texted my mom back that could I get back to her with an answer Sunday, explaining that the first time that my boyfriend and I would be able to have a real conversation would be on Saturday and that we would need one more day to make up our minds. 

The workload is quite frankly insane! How can I just tell my mom that I can get back to her in 7 days with an answer? It almost feels like I’m messaging a work colleague rather than my own mother. I can’t complain too much though. Even though we’re busy, I think both my boyfriend and I both have a large amount of flexibility in our jobs (most notably the ability to travel).

The best way for my boyfriend and I to spend quality time together is to make sure that we schedule something well in advance. Sitting on my boyfriend’s calendar for the past several days has been the words “Pumpkin Time.” Yes, my boyfriend and I scheduled time (3.5 hours exactly) to carve pumpkins together!

We went to Trader Joe’s to pick up the pumpkins. In my childhood, I would always visit a pumpkin patch with my family to select pumpkins. We would run through the patch turning over pumpkins to find the roundest and smoothest of them all. Then having found the perfect pumpkin we would carry them back to the little shop to weigh them. It was always a fun process, however, now that I live in Boston, it was quite a different experience to just pick up a pumpkin for $3.99 from a cardboard box and then take it to the register to check out.

With pumpkin carving equipment in hand, we gingerly removed the pumpkin tops and begun to remove the insides (saving the seeds to roast later). My boyfriend used a stencil to carve a friendly bat and I just winged it to carve a scared-looking face. This experience was extra special for us, because this was my boyfriend’s first time carving a pumpkin! I, on the other hand, have been doing this for perhaps almost two decades as it was a tradition in my family growing up.

The pumpkins turned out quite well! And, we even (successfully!!) roasted pumpkin seeds. It’s amazing how just a few hours sometimes is all it takes to make up for days of work and related-madness. Although I hope that our schedules will slow down in the near future, I am content with the fact that we both cherish our quality time and are eager to plan more adventures together when we can. I’m sure your days are hectic too, Dear Reader, but I really do hope that you get a few precious hours that make everything else worth it.

Love,

Raven