So life for me is 100% back to normal. food is never easy, but hey that is life. I am actually in sales as well, and funny enough have 2 conferences over the next 2 weeks. The best advise I can give is to be patient with your food. I will admit I have jumped ahead a little to give myself more options while traveling, but very cautiously. Right now I should be purée only, but I yesterday I started to add in crab sticks. So far so good, and for me these are easy to come by from Lunds. For travel if in a jam always remember chili and Soup is always a sure bet. I also eat a bunch (is 2-3 tbl spoons is a bunch...LOL!) of avocado and cottage cheese is well in a jam.
Where in MN do you live? If you are near the west suburbs maybe we could meet up and chat. It would be great to meet another person on their journey.