Lunch Notes | Sandwich Salad & Trip Reflections (Caitlin's Version)

Guest writer edition! My friend, Caitlin, shares about her relationship with lunch, a recent trip she took with her family, and the media treasures in her lunchbox.

Welcome to Lunch Notes.

Lunch Notes is born out of a desire to use my daily lunch break better. Not in a productivity, “optimize for everything” way, but in a “use it or lose it” sort of way.

I hope that this feels like a note that someone tucked into your lunchbox. Or like a class newsletter tucked in your cubby that a cringy keener kid made for you.

In today’s issue, we have our first guest writer! Caitlin is one of my closest friends and co-workers, and my go-to person for style chats, life optimization chats and more. Caitlin approaches her life with such intentionality and thoughtfulness - whenever I get a glimpse of her life, I’m always screaming “I WANT MORE!”

She has so much goodness to give, and today, she’s sharing that goodness with us! So, without further ado - welcome to Lunch Notes. 🧡 Okay, over to Caitlin!

It’s another long one, so you’ll either need to expand in your email or read it right in the Substack app (always my favourite way to consume Substack writing!)

It’s like winning in the Olympics. Okay, not quite. But being offered a guest post from Hannah is a HUGE honour. Hannah is someone I’m constantly inspired by, love obsessing about minutia of maximizing life details with, and am very jealous of (but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Read on to learn more!) 

I keep my IG private, but if you want to connect, please feel free to say hi! I know friends of Hannah are the best of the best, so I’d love to meet you! You can find me at @cpadanyi.

Sandwich Salad Time.

My relationship with lunch…is complicated. Mostly because my relationship with food is complicated. Between a gluten allergy, a generally sensitive stomach and a storied history with disordered eating, pulling together a lunch pushes allll the buttons. 

And a salad feature two weeks in a row? That brings up feelings. 

I’ve worked really hard to really believe that all foods fit. But a while ago I realized, I wasn’t letting salad fit.  

So a few years ago I worked with a dietician who reminded me: diet culture doesn’t own salad. You’re allowed to eat salad and you’re allowed to find ways to enjoy it. 

And this is my sandwich salad. The key for me to find satisfaction in this salad is lots of cheese, lots of meat, and lots of pickles. And for sure lots of sauce. 

PLUS: I can chop this up and it lasts a few days. It’s a win if I can eat something more substantial than a bowl of chips or crackers with a fizzy water. So two days in a row with food that feels like it meets my body’s needs. That makes me feel like a total rockstar. 

A Vacation Retrospective.

This summer, I took two weeks off work for the first time in my working life. My family (me, my husband, and our two boys, ages 5 + 8) packed up and went from our home in the Canadian rockies to the land of always sunny Southern California. 

The Context.

We have a tumultuous history with travelling. My oldest child has a nervous system disorder (Tourette Syndrome) and my husband and I had undiagnosed ADHD until a few years ago. So all of the things people love about travel—seeing new things, breaking out of regular routine, going with the flow—threw our brains into total shutdown mode. But now, with some diagnoses, therapy and medication under our belts (well the medication goes through our mouths, not under our belts), we set out to make a big family vacation™️ happen. 

The Planning.

After we realized we are capable of actually vacationing, we laid out a plan. We keep a family list of things to do each month (inspired by the internet’s best planner @hayleywynndesigns). It’s an ugly google doc that lists the things we need to think about each month.

In our January list, “plan and start budgeting for summer vacation” is in there. We love to set out a detailed vacation budget - all the things we think we’ll spend on hotels, rental car¹, special coffees out, visiting special grocery stores² and more. We figure out how much we have to put aside each month to make vacation happen. It’s boring, but let me tell you, coming back from vacation and not owing a penny to anyone… dreamy. 

The Packing.

I’ve gone through the stages of chronic overpacker to becoming a dedicated packing minimalist. Now I’m trying to find somewhere in the middle. I had a few things I knew I wanted to buy to make our lives easier, but didn’t want to buy things that would ONLY be useful for one week of our lives. I tried to challenge myself to use a combo of thinking of three things I could use instead of buying something new and letting things sit in the cart for a while.

For our family of 4, we brought one large suitcase, two carry-on sized suitcases and we each had a backpack. It definitely was not minimal, but it felt right. 

Here’s a rundown of the things I ended up buying and bringing that made life SO much easier: 

• Microfibre towels - why did I wait so long? They fold up SO small, dry pretty quickly and sand doesn’t stick to them. We got one towel for each person and they took up basically zero room.

• Sun tent - this one was a splurge and it could’ve just as easily gone poorly but it ended up working out like a dream. It folds up small enough to fit in a carry-on, holds up beautifully in the wind. AND it turned out it’s made in Southern California, so it made us feel a little like locals. We’re still using it now at local beaches!

• Scrub laundry bag + Landry strips + rope as a clothesline - my super world-traveller and fantastically frugal university roommate told me this was worth it. It was so nice to be able to wash a few pieces of clothing while we were gone. We used it when kiddos had an accident and when I spilled ice cream on my favourite t-shirt. We ended up doing one load of laundry at the hotel (something we’ve never tried before) and that worked great too! 

• Pop-up storage container - this one I didn’t need to buy because I’m OBSESSED with baskets. We knew that we’d need to get some food and would want a place to store it. Because there’s nothing that brings out my ADHD rage like things being scatted all over, I thought it might be worth the packing space. So I brought some folding containers to hold things in our hotel room. I will be doing that one again in the future! 

• Lunch containers - we brought a few lunch containers from home and some plastic ziplock bags. This gave us the freedom to pack lunches when we were out for the day. Since I suck at lunch and am still learning to make space for my own mid-day needs, I am more than happy with a collection of snacks. Add a special fizzy water, and I’m all set.

I think that choosing a few thoughtful new purchases but not obsessing over the perfect everything really helped this vacation feel…settled and good! Hannah was shocked when I told her my vacation was 10/10 - I don’t think anyone has ever heard my  anything like that about vacation before

The Reflection.

One of the things I love to do after vacation is to immediately create memories. I love making little photobooks that we can print and look through together. My goal is to not over-think it - just create a book and order it.

Earlier this year I read Die with Zero, and the author proposes the idea that memories can be invested like money. I think that’s what these little books let me do. I experience the vacation, take the time to chronicle it, then I get to look back at it and remember it… usually more fondly than I experienced it in the first place. Apparently these are the kind of things that help our wellbeing too, which is an awesome bonus reason to take a bit of time to create a little memory book. 

I also like to take time — during the trip and afterwards — to take some notes. For the past year I’ve been using Notion. It was a ton of fun to look back on last summer’s notes and remember things that were important for us to consider this year. Full confession, I’ve been back for 10 days and have not taken the time to chronicle our trip in photo OR word form. Maybe I need to add THAT to our family list of things to do each month. 

In the Lunch Box is a collection of treasures from our lives from the last few weeks - media we’ve consumed, products we’re loving, things we can’t get enough of… in a condensed, digestible, aesthetic format (I hope).

1. The Artist’s Way: This book has become my personality. I heard people talk about it on the internet (mostly about morning pages) so when a friend invited me to join her and some other women to work through it together I was IN. We meet every other week and work through a chapter together. The friend who hosts is the master of creating a snack platter and having great drink options. Her living room has been a place of so much joy this year. 

2. Jealousy as a Guide: Out of the Artist’s way I’ve started exploring the idea of how jealousy can give us really helpful insights. It can point us to take action toward the things we really want in life. Earlier I said I’m jealous of Hannah & it’s true. She gets stuff done, she takes action, she asks for what she wants, and she shows up in the world with so much brave energy. And it’s easy for me to see her and say, “I want that. I want to be like that. But I’ll never be like that.” But what if I use that jealous feeling to try asking for something I want? To try writing some words and sending them out into the world? The jealousy (something I usually try to avoid) actually points me to what I want (to be more like Hannah). And I’m learning it can be a gift.

3. KamalaTok: As a Canadian I have zero skin in the American election game. But can I just say, I am OBSESSED with this woman. I have spent countless hours watching videos of her. The way she carriers herself. How she can be so darn cool and so professional at the same time. Give me ALL the election TikTok. 

I hope this was a nice break away from you - I loved reading all of Caitlin’s words and am thinking about stealing packing storage baskets and making time for my needs and a family list of things we need to do each month. And Caitlin is so kind. Ah! I hope you’ll find her online and become her pal - find her over on Instagram or leave her a comment with something you liked and learned. (And join me in begging her to start a Substack?!?!)

If you have ideas for future Lunch Notes topics or things you’d like to see me write about here, please let me know and I’ll add them in to my (chaotic) content calendar.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your lunch!

1. Note: did you know you can rent cars for a really good deal through Costco travel? It’s saved us tons of the years

2. This is an actual activity when Canadians travel to the US. As a kid, the cereal aisle was out of this world. This trip I learned the adult version is the yogurt aisle. What a dream!)