Meet Cara

Cara is a former Senior Event Manager and Catering Director who spent 20+ years in the industry planning everything from weddings and social events to large corporate meetings and high-touch executive retreats.

She found her passion for event planning after earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration followed by a brief (and bizarre) career as a Financial Auditor for a public accounting firm. When Cara embarked on her journey in the motherhood, she decided to stop working outside the home and focus on her family.

Now a full-time “Family Manager”, Cara finds pleasure in baking and cooking from scratch, brewing bougie coffee, doing DIY projects, paper crafting, home organization, health and fitness, photography and hosting gatherings for family and friends… in between her day-to-day responsibilities as a mom.

As a self-admitted Type-A personality, she lives by Mary Poppins’ motto that “there is a place for everything and everything in its place.” However, she acknowledges that life often thwarts that adage… but that it’s good to have goals.  

As a natural born storyteller, Cara started her blog “Gayle Force(d) Wisdom – Lessons Learned from Life’s Little Hurricanes” in 2024 the intention to share the wisdom and life lessons that she gathers from everyday life. Cara finds inspiration for her writing from interactions with family and friends, quotes and themes in TV shows and movies, while listening to podcasts, reading other blogs and in her day-to-day happenings as she figures out life one day a time.

Cara is a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and a survivor of a chronic illness - which just recently went into remission. She was born and raised in Northern California but relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 2007. She continues to live there today with her husband, two boys and her tiny, overprivileged pug.

Disclaimer:
The information presented in this blog is solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. This blog is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment and should not be treated as such.

These are Cara’s personal experiences as she recalls them and may or may not be how the others involved would recount the events.

Meet Gayle

Wait. I am confused. If your name is Cara - who is Gayle? The story goes something like this…

As transplants to Washington State, Cara and her husband found themselves during the the holidays without a lot of family around. On Thanksgiving Day 2017, they were invited to stop by their neighbors’ turned friends’ home for a visit before dinner. The neighbors were Washingtonian natives with many extended family members living close by that Cara had met multiple times over the years. While getting to know this group, she was a mom of very young children and so it meant that she was often wearing no make-up, dressed in yoga pants, hair up in a ponytail, being dragged around the neighborhood by the dog, pushing a stroller, chasing after a toddler or all of the above. To be frank, she had not met them while looking her best. On this particular holiday, Cara decided to pull herself together, curl her hair, put on make-up and wear regular clothes instead of her signature “I give up wear” as her husband lovingly referred to her yoga pants/mom uniform. 

Upon arriving at the neighbors’ home, she was not recognized by one of the neighbors’ parents and had to re-introduce herself to the woman. She thought nothing of it, as perhaps her friend’s mother was having a memory lapse - after all she was in her late 70s at the time. Cara happily chatted with everyone there, a good time was had by all and she and her family left to eat the meal she had prepared at home for them.   

After departing, a conversation between her friend and her friend’s father went something like this:

Friend’s Father: “I sure like that Gayle. She’s always on top of things. She takes care of herself. Her boys always look great. Even the dog looks great.”

(A few moments of silence pass… the friend is perplexed by this comment/reference…)

Friend: “Dad, who the hell is Gayle?”

Friend’s Father: “You know Gayle. Your neighbor. The one with the two little boys?”

Friend: “You mean CARA????”

Friend’s Father “Oh yeah, Cara….”

After that day, the nickname Gayle stuck for Cara in a way that no other nickname in her life had before. It was not just a nickname though. It had created a new persona. Over time, the story was re-told to others in Cara’s life, and now many of her family members and friends, including her own children, often refer to her as “Gayle.”

Cara had no idea that pulling herself together on that one fateful day would not only make her unrecognizable to people that had met her previously, but also create a whole new alter ego. Where Cara falls short in life, Gayle seems to pick right back up. She is the best version of Cara. Gayle is a confident, fun gal who has got her shit together at all times and is always a little bit extra. When Cara decided to start a blog, she knew that Gayle had to be a part of it. The term “gale force winds” was the first thing that came to mind. After some contemplation and wordsmithing, the Gayle Force(d) Wisdom blog was born.