Life Isn't Fair

I haven't had much time to blog because I started a brand new job and my poor poor husband has been working insane hours (4:30pm-4:30 am). The adjustment has definitely been hard, I'm pretty certain I've never been so tired and so happy at the same time.
After finally coming to the realization that, "life just isn't fair," I've had so much more peace in my life. My parents were the kind of people who answered their kids when they asked why. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but come to find out most people are told from a very young age that life isn't fair. Although psychologically you would think that proper explanation of events or consequences would lead to a more well adjusted human being, well that's just plain wrong. I applaud the parents out there who every once in a while couldn't bear to explain every little detail to a screaming child and just answered with a strong, "life isn't fair, get over it." Finding this fact out at the age of 22 has been hard. Because most of my life has been working towards a very specific goal, I guess I never really stopped to think what happens after I reach it? I just assumed that with a degree I can step right out of the class room and into a meaningful career. But that is not how things work at all. This has been a really trying time for me, but I feel like I've grown and learned so much in the past few months that maybe all this pain and suffering will lead to something better, eventually....

So I started what most would consider a "mediocre" job. I am a sales associate at Family Video. Turns out I love being a sales associate at Family Video and I'm actually really freaking good at it! I get to wear cute clothes to work! And talk about one of my favorite things all day! And I earn commission when I do a good job! And my co-workers are actually nice! And so are my managers!! At first I felt kind of crappy about myself for getting a degree to work at family video. But I shouldn't be! I'm young, I'm making money and I'm having a blast at work. Honestly what more could I ask for? I feel good about this situation and I'm happy.

I'm a big girl now!

Sooooooo I just spent an hour cleaning up excess grout around our gorgeous slate tiles that we purchased and put up and grouted 2 years ago! 2 years! It's hard to believe we have been in this house for 2 years and I still haven't quite figured out how to clean it efficiently, I have made strides especially in the last 9 months. So 2 very short years of numerous side projects and "lets do that next weekend, what's the rush?" later it's finally getting done. And all despite the fact that I have a nasty little stomach bug at the moment, which by the way really couldn't have come at a better time. It's funny how seemingly disgusting and horrible things can actually be a little blessing in disguise. Since my return from Vegas I've had a really hard time getting back on track with my diet and portion control and as a result gained a few pounds. So I'm happy embracing this bug as a means to shrink my extended stomach back to how it should be.
Now the exciting big girl part, I finally got a big girl interview! And it came from down the block and in the alley behind left field. I applied to a ton of jobs at St John hospital in October of 2010, back before I had even considered not attending graduate school, way back when I had no concept of what a resume should look like, and before I even knew what a cover letter was. Well I got a call yesterday to come in and interview for one of the many (no longer stored in my memory) jobs that I applied for. The woman I'm interviewing with did inform me that it was in patient care, so I looked up available jobs and saw the most likely candidate. If this is the job it would consist of showing patients to their rooms tending to their guests and family and basically being a nurse's bitch. I don't think I've even been so excited to take on the responsibility of being someone's bitch.

Hopefully not this nurse's bitch.

<3

Things are looking up

So I had an interview on Monday with family video... It went really great and so I moved on to take their employee "clerical" test. That test was daunting. I'm happy I still remember how to divide fractions and and work out story problems, so the math part was a no brainer. Then comes the spelling and word matching. I learned that I heavily rely on spellcheck. I have no idea what I got wrong on this test but I was definitely unsure about the spelling of a lot of words on the page. Also I am thankful that I took the GRE less than 6 months ago because a majority of the definition matching questions were straight out of my GRE prep books. So I did well on the test and now I'm just waiting for my final interview. Working for Family Video is not my dream job, but I've learned after doing some research on them that within a few years I could make just as much or even more than a job in my field. I'm anxious to get to work and earn some money for my household. But for now I'm enjoying the luxuries of keeping house and trying to make my husband's life easier. Which is why I just had to bust out some baked goods today.


So here is my Banana Bread recipe!


2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (I always use olivio to cut calories and bad fats)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 mashed large bananass
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch of nutmeg

Preheat oven 350 degrees

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl, set aside.

Cream together butter and brown sugar.

Add remainder of ingredients into the butter/sugar mix.

Once thoroughly combined stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients just enough to moisten.

If you over stir the bread will turn out dense and drier than it should.

Bake for an hour then allow to cool in pan for 10-15 min.

I've figured out that if you can make 10 slices a loaf, it's about 217 calories a slice!

Now I'm buying bananas every week just in the hopes that no one will eat them and they'll over ripen and end up baked in a delicious bread.

<3

Where did my brain go?

So back from Vegas and jumping back into the job search again, I am having pretty much not luck when it comes to getting an interview in my field, but I do have an interview today at Family Video. It's not ideal, but it will hold me over until I find my real job.
Before I left for Vegas I definitely got my shit together when it came to perfecting my resume, job hunting every day, and writing great cover letters in a second nature type of way. Today I noticed that one of the organizations that I've been trying to volunteer/work for finally had a new job opening. I'm happy I didn't try to wing that cover letter. Looking back on how focused I was before my trip is amazing, I read my last cover letter written 2 days before we left and couldn't even recognize it as my own. Apparently too much booze, sun, and food has had a serious effect on my brain.....


I am desperate to get back to where I was.


<3

Red Velvet Cupcakes

So I found this bomb recipe on AllRecipes 
 I then altered the ingredients to my taste and topped them off with a little fresh fruit. I am in love with this recipe especially the frosting I literally licked the bowl.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 (1 ounce) bottle Red Food Coloring
•   3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 (16 ounce) box confectioners' sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Frost with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.
4. Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat cream cheese, softened, butter, sour cream and  Pure Vanilla Extract in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth. 

And The Job Search Continues....

So I've been stuck in a rut thinking that my resume was fine, my cover letters were fine, everything I was doing was great but people just didn't have any interest in hiring me. I was disillusion . I finally sent my resume to someone who was willing to be honest with me about it to help me out instead of just saying, "yeah this is great, I have no idea why you don't already have a job!" Unfortunately I read the message about how bland and unattractive my resume was right as I was trying to sleep. So I'm thinking I'll forget about it and wait until morning to work on it, but after an hour of trying to fall asleep I worked myself up to a full debilitating panic mode. I was freaking out. I'm thinking crap I sent this awful thing to all of these jobs that I really want! Poor me! What can I do about this?!
I am an idiot. I thought that for some reason my resume would stand out in a pile of hundreds because ya know I'm me I'm great I am qualified I am passionate. I realized that my cover letter and resume were definitely not a very good reflection of my awesomeness and what I can really offer an organization. I also realized how many dummies are out there like me searching through careerbuilder, indeed, michigantalent, ect. We are wasting our time. It is hard even with excellent credentials to be discovered.
I am so happy that I don't feel like one of those assholes anymore. Thanks to an excellent BLOG, a no nonsense friend, and the internet in general I am now miles closer to my career. I honestly don't know what I was thinking. My career is one of the most important things in the world to me and now I'm finally awake, alert and ready to fight for it! 

Emo

For some reason everything has been hitting me really hard lately. I feel instantly guilty about very little things, people's comments have been throwing me into some really negative thought patterns, even physically I feel like I'm feeling things more than usual. I don't know what's up with me, but I've been feeling seriously weird and I don't like it.

On the brighter side I had a seriously fantastic weekend with my hubby & my friends. Nick & I tried out geocaching on friday, we kinda failed but we are definitely intrigued and going to try again. Saturday started off a little rough, but ended up being a great time. We went to the gun range where I finally got to shoot MY new gun, I absolutely love it! The kick-back is no where near as intense as the hubster's 9mm, which resulted in my actually hitting what I was aiming for most of the time,  I bragged about this all day, I literally could not contain my excitement!

After all the bang bang bang, and a little yard work, we joined Aud in a game of Pandemic (super nerdy board game) that we won for the first time ever! Unfortunately Nick had to work in the morning which meant he left early but then us girls decided on a spur of the moment girls night, which featured booze, make-up, curling irons, and prom dresses. I was skeptical at first, but I have to admit it ended up being a blast!

Mother's Day went pretty well my mom cooked us an awesome southern style breakfast from her mother's old recipes. It was scrumptious! Then she went went out for the day and I watched Blue Valentine with my sister. I highly recommend this movie, I really enjoyed the point of view and the realistic romantic story line. I had been waiting for this movie to come to dvd for months, the two actors lived together for the entirety of the film, it makes you wonder what might be a little more than acting.
My house is clean today which is really comforting, and to top that off I'm making a sort of open faced chicken pot pie. Tomorrow I'll add the recipe!

<3