I'm ready to be on vacation again. Seriously. I enjoy working, but there are so many things I would be able to keep on top of at home if I could find the right part time position...or if I won the lottery...of course, to win, one must play.
I'm feeling very frustrated. I had an interview for a full time position within my current company today. It falls within my area of expertise. Unfortunately, there is also a candidate who is already working within the department, and she is a strong candidate for the job. I wish there were some way that they could indicate when there is already a front runner for the job, so I could save myself the trouble. Don't get me wrong, the interviewer was very nice...but I view it as a bad sign when she repeatedly says, "What about a job in _____? That seems like it would be a great fit for your skill set."
I recently received an email link to a job posting that is perfect for me...three states away. This is turning out to be the story of my career lately. I know it is partially because my standards are high in some areas. I am not willing to relocate. I would really like to stay with my company. It has to pay at least a certain amount and be within a reasonable commute from my home. But these have always been my standards, and somehow I have always had the right opportunity come up eventually. And some of them have come up in horrible economic times, so I am unwilling to accept that as a justification. I have been looking for a LONG time now, and nothing is working out. I'm out of ideas. Help!
Thanks for letting me vent. I'm seriously considering buying a few lottery tickets on my way home tonight.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Worm Food
I have been delinquent in posting this month! I got caught up in summer fun...we had our back yard fenced in, bought a canopy/umbrella and a picnic table and so have been spending most of our non-work time outdoors. This past week we were on vacation down the shore, which was the place to be in the record breaking heat! We were fortunate that we were not in the path of the derecho either at home or down the shore - it passed between the two. Our home is far enough north and my parents' home down the shore was far enough south that we were very fortunate.
We've spent this week getting back into the swing of things, unpacking, cleaning up, checking out how the garden did in the extreme heat while we were away. My plants all survived the heat just fine, but something is eating all of my bean, squash and zucchini plants! To the point that I don't think many of them are going to make it. There are times when I wish I had a security camera pointed at the garden so that I can see which critters are responsible. It's hard to formulate a defense without know what is getting in...through the ten foot fence!
The week before we left for vacation, we bought a Worm Factory and set it up. We have been there done that with traditional compost piles and we have a compost tumbler. Both worked fine, but I was really looking for an option that would allow us to compost our kitchen scraps year round. I prefer to keep as much as possible out of the landfills, and composting is so easy. I had been thinking about giving vermicomposting a try for quite some time, but it took me a while to get past my hang ups about having worms in the house. I am so happy I did get over it, because it's actually fun to vermicompost. My daughter is especially enjoying it. She loves checking on the worms to see if they are eating and loves to watch us feed the worms. I was a little nervous initially that she would be inclined to relocate the worms, but she understands that they live in their composter and are very happy there.
So when we bought the Worm Factory, I was thinking that we would put it in the garage, because I didn't really want worms inside the actual house. When it arrived, we were experiencing such extreme temperatures that the only option was to set it up inside the house so our worms didn't get cooked. It's in the kitchen, and I am really impressed that there is no smell whatsoever to this unit. The worms settled right in and made no attempt to make a run for it. I must admit, the first few mornings, I half expected to walk into the kitchen and see worms everywhere, trying to get away! I made the obvious rookie mistake and overfed the worms, but it worked out to be perfect timing for our vacation. A week and a half of benign neglect solved that particular problem, and now that we are back, we are well on our way to some really nice looking compost and we and the worms are ready to start the next feeding tray!
My next challenge will be learning to pressure can. Everything I have read seems to be designed to scare people away from pressure canning with warnings about how you can easily kill your whole family. I am refusing to be frightened off, though. I live near a large state university, which has a large agricultural school with a food science department. I am hoping I can find some kind of resource there. Many of the warnings I have read tell you never ever to can your own recipes, that they must be tested thoroughly by food scientists before it is okay to pressure can them. I'm wondering if there is somewhere that I can submit a couple of recipes to have them tested out by pros.
We've spent this week getting back into the swing of things, unpacking, cleaning up, checking out how the garden did in the extreme heat while we were away. My plants all survived the heat just fine, but something is eating all of my bean, squash and zucchini plants! To the point that I don't think many of them are going to make it. There are times when I wish I had a security camera pointed at the garden so that I can see which critters are responsible. It's hard to formulate a defense without know what is getting in...through the ten foot fence!
The week before we left for vacation, we bought a Worm Factory and set it up. We have been there done that with traditional compost piles and we have a compost tumbler. Both worked fine, but I was really looking for an option that would allow us to compost our kitchen scraps year round. I prefer to keep as much as possible out of the landfills, and composting is so easy. I had been thinking about giving vermicomposting a try for quite some time, but it took me a while to get past my hang ups about having worms in the house. I am so happy I did get over it, because it's actually fun to vermicompost. My daughter is especially enjoying it. She loves checking on the worms to see if they are eating and loves to watch us feed the worms. I was a little nervous initially that she would be inclined to relocate the worms, but she understands that they live in their composter and are very happy there.
So when we bought the Worm Factory, I was thinking that we would put it in the garage, because I didn't really want worms inside the actual house. When it arrived, we were experiencing such extreme temperatures that the only option was to set it up inside the house so our worms didn't get cooked. It's in the kitchen, and I am really impressed that there is no smell whatsoever to this unit. The worms settled right in and made no attempt to make a run for it. I must admit, the first few mornings, I half expected to walk into the kitchen and see worms everywhere, trying to get away! I made the obvious rookie mistake and overfed the worms, but it worked out to be perfect timing for our vacation. A week and a half of benign neglect solved that particular problem, and now that we are back, we are well on our way to some really nice looking compost and we and the worms are ready to start the next feeding tray!
My next challenge will be learning to pressure can. Everything I have read seems to be designed to scare people away from pressure canning with warnings about how you can easily kill your whole family. I am refusing to be frightened off, though. I live near a large state university, which has a large agricultural school with a food science department. I am hoping I can find some kind of resource there. Many of the warnings I have read tell you never ever to can your own recipes, that they must be tested thoroughly by food scientists before it is okay to pressure can them. I'm wondering if there is somewhere that I can submit a couple of recipes to have them tested out by pros.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Going Into Homesteader Mode
I sometimes think I lived on a farm in a past life...though if I was, my proclivity for sleeping until at least 9 am would have been a problem. I have the itch to grow ever more in my garden and am gradually branching out into other areas like growing from seed, composting, and canning. It's addictive! My husband has been itching to get a couple of chickens, and for the first time I am thinking I should agree. Then I think about cleaning the coop and having to find someone to care for them when we go away. I also think our senior German Shepherd would be a problem...rather than herding, I suspect she would treat the birds as prey.
This time of year, as the weather gets warmer and we start spending more and more time outside, I love to be in my vegetable garden. It is ever expanding, despite the fact that the wildlife in our suburban neighborhood makes a pretty substantial fence around the garden necessary. For years, we had green garden fencing about 6-7 feet tall, with rabbit fence buried about a foot deep. We figured that the buried rabbit fence would thwart the many, MANY groundhogs that seem to be drawn to our yard. For the most part, it did, with only one exception that I am aware of. We were trapping the groundhogs and relocating them across the river from our home. There was one groundhog that would not be caught, probably because he was too big to fit into our have-a-heart trap. I couldn't figure out how he was getting into the garden to take two bites of our unripe produce before discarding it on the ground for us to find until one memorable night when I came out onto the second floor balcony in the back of our house and saw him HANGING from the top of the fence. He was scaling the fence to get in and out for his munching sessions.
That worked (the one ornery groundhog aside) until the unfortunate day when we found that somehow a deer had leaped into the enclosure and then panicked, knocking over and smashing several tomato plants and cages on his way straight through the fence on the opposite side. He was clearly fine, he demolished the fence with one charge and it didn't even slow him down. Happily, there was no blood or fur left behind, so I am confident that he was fine, having watched his panic and subsequent departure in horror.
So that brings us to our current fence, ten feet tall and with posts set in concrete. I love it! There will be no deer getting in from now on - safer for them and for my heart. I planted from seed this year, so of course I have more plants than I have space in the garden, but have been happily giving the extras away to friends.
I kept way more than I probably should have, so I know that if all goes well with growing this season, we will have more harvest than we will be able to consume. One year I happened to be unemployed when planting time came, and I planted 75 tomato plants. They were different varieties, but there were 75 of them! From this past experience, I know that we will have more than we will be able to give away, even though we will be well under a total of 75 plants. We grow tomatoes (beefsteak, heirloom and cherry), peppers, zucchini, squash, bush beans, sweet potatoes, melons, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. I am toying with the idea of putting some of the extra harvest down by the street with an honor box - a common practice where I grew up (about an hour from here), but not sure how it would go here.
I also just invested in my first pressure canner. Despite hearing horror stories of them exploding and being afraid of the process, if I can get the hang of it pretty quickly, it will save both produce and freezer space. I have canned in the past, but never ventured beyond the water bath canner. I need to be able to can low acid foods, which you can't do with a water bath canner. I also really like to make soups in my crockpot, and it would be nice to be able to can several batches of our favorites. I went with the All American 921 21.5 Qt, but I've heard very good things about the less expensive Presto pressure canners as well.
Now I'm off to craigslist to prospect for more canning jars - hopefully I'm going to need them!
This time of year, as the weather gets warmer and we start spending more and more time outside, I love to be in my vegetable garden. It is ever expanding, despite the fact that the wildlife in our suburban neighborhood makes a pretty substantial fence around the garden necessary. For years, we had green garden fencing about 6-7 feet tall, with rabbit fence buried about a foot deep. We figured that the buried rabbit fence would thwart the many, MANY groundhogs that seem to be drawn to our yard. For the most part, it did, with only one exception that I am aware of. We were trapping the groundhogs and relocating them across the river from our home. There was one groundhog that would not be caught, probably because he was too big to fit into our have-a-heart trap. I couldn't figure out how he was getting into the garden to take two bites of our unripe produce before discarding it on the ground for us to find until one memorable night when I came out onto the second floor balcony in the back of our house and saw him HANGING from the top of the fence. He was scaling the fence to get in and out for his munching sessions.
That worked (the one ornery groundhog aside) until the unfortunate day when we found that somehow a deer had leaped into the enclosure and then panicked, knocking over and smashing several tomato plants and cages on his way straight through the fence on the opposite side. He was clearly fine, he demolished the fence with one charge and it didn't even slow him down. Happily, there was no blood or fur left behind, so I am confident that he was fine, having watched his panic and subsequent departure in horror.
So that brings us to our current fence, ten feet tall and with posts set in concrete. I love it! There will be no deer getting in from now on - safer for them and for my heart. I planted from seed this year, so of course I have more plants than I have space in the garden, but have been happily giving the extras away to friends.
I kept way more than I probably should have, so I know that if all goes well with growing this season, we will have more harvest than we will be able to consume. One year I happened to be unemployed when planting time came, and I planted 75 tomato plants. They were different varieties, but there were 75 of them! From this past experience, I know that we will have more than we will be able to give away, even though we will be well under a total of 75 plants. We grow tomatoes (beefsteak, heirloom and cherry), peppers, zucchini, squash, bush beans, sweet potatoes, melons, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. I am toying with the idea of putting some of the extra harvest down by the street with an honor box - a common practice where I grew up (about an hour from here), but not sure how it would go here.
I also just invested in my first pressure canner. Despite hearing horror stories of them exploding and being afraid of the process, if I can get the hang of it pretty quickly, it will save both produce and freezer space. I have canned in the past, but never ventured beyond the water bath canner. I need to be able to can low acid foods, which you can't do with a water bath canner. I also really like to make soups in my crockpot, and it would be nice to be able to can several batches of our favorites. I went with the All American 921 21.5 Qt, but I've heard very good things about the less expensive Presto pressure canners as well.
Now I'm off to craigslist to prospect for more canning jars - hopefully I'm going to need them!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Dancing With The Stars Withdrawal Begins
It has been one week since Dancing With The Stars (DWTS) had its finale, and already my two year old is going into withdrawal. Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that she still has no concept of time...everything is immediate for her still. I really work on not telling her about places we are going or events I know she will be excited about because she wants it to happen immediately and if it doesn't, like any two year old, she asks about it EVERY. FIVE. SECONDS. So for my own sanity, I give her at most a couple hours of lead time. More than two hours real time seems to equal an eternity in toddler time. It just occurred to me that the no concept of time thing also seems to work in reverse, as she also refers to things that happened months ago (our trip to Great Wolf Lodge waterpark, her cousin's first birthday party back in April) as though they happened yesterday. Hmm. Interesting.
Back to DWTS - between the fact that it does always seem to be in season and that we DVR it, Little One really does think it's on demand. (And WOW does it eat up DVR space.) She thinks all of the female dancers, whether celebrity or pro, are Cinderella. She differentiates between them with the color of their costume each week, so we have "Red Cinderella", "Yellow Cinderella", etc. The exception was this season, after she saw pictures of Sherri Shepherd's son as a baby, she became "The Baby's Mommy". Brooke Burke-Charvet is the "Cinderella Who Doesn't Dance", and Tom Bergeron is "The Boy Who Talks" or "The Boy Who Doesn't Dance".
As soon as DWTS comes on, Little One runs to get her Cinderella dress and shoes. The dress is a hand me down from when one of our neighbors was two and went to a wedding. It's very sweet, but has seen better days, so it is perfect for playing dress up. She pulls it on over whatever she is wearing, which makes for some great photo opportunities. Then she dances along, which I like, because she isn't just parked in front of the tv, mesmerized. The only downside is that she often wants me to dance with her, which I just can't sustain for an entire 2 hour episode!
This weekend, Little One went to the hardware store with her daddy. On the way home, from the dark backseat, he hears, "Welcome back to Dancing with the Stars!" I've created a monster!
It's going to be a long summer of "I wanna watch Dancin', please" and trying to explain that it won't be on again for quite a while. Hopefully she will have so much fun playing outside this summer she will forget all about it...
Back to DWTS - between the fact that it does always seem to be in season and that we DVR it, Little One really does think it's on demand. (And WOW does it eat up DVR space.) She thinks all of the female dancers, whether celebrity or pro, are Cinderella. She differentiates between them with the color of their costume each week, so we have "Red Cinderella", "Yellow Cinderella", etc. The exception was this season, after she saw pictures of Sherri Shepherd's son as a baby, she became "The Baby's Mommy". Brooke Burke-Charvet is the "Cinderella Who Doesn't Dance", and Tom Bergeron is "The Boy Who Talks" or "The Boy Who Doesn't Dance".
As soon as DWTS comes on, Little One runs to get her Cinderella dress and shoes. The dress is a hand me down from when one of our neighbors was two and went to a wedding. It's very sweet, but has seen better days, so it is perfect for playing dress up. She pulls it on over whatever she is wearing, which makes for some great photo opportunities. Then she dances along, which I like, because she isn't just parked in front of the tv, mesmerized. The only downside is that she often wants me to dance with her, which I just can't sustain for an entire 2 hour episode!
This weekend, Little One went to the hardware store with her daddy. On the way home, from the dark backseat, he hears, "Welcome back to Dancing with the Stars!" I've created a monster!
It's going to be a long summer of "I wanna watch Dancin', please" and trying to explain that it won't be on again for quite a while. Hopefully she will have so much fun playing outside this summer she will forget all about it...
Friday, May 18, 2012
Everything Must Go! Okay, Not Really.
I felt much better this week. Happily, our house didn't fall down around our ears while I was sick. Having routines in place for the everyday tasks like laundry and dishes really made a difference. Knowing that each thing would take less than 15 minutes to do made it possible for me to wrap my head around actually doing it. Also, knowing that the laundry is mostly caught up, it really was not a big problem to skip a day here and there. Now that I am feeling 100% again, it was easy to pick up where I left off and do just one extra thing each day. That is pretty unusual for me, and felt great!
I am still digging out from when we were putting our addition on. One would think you'd start with this great, empty new space and only bring into it the stuff you need on day one. Unfortunately, there really isn't a day one when you do something like this unless you are living elsewhere! We wanted to get rid of the expense of having a storage unit as quickly as possible, so the furniture and boxes that were stored went right into - you guessed it - the new parts of our house. I am still digging out almost a year later. I got through 6 boxes this week!
In those boxes were many items that we no longer want or need. Many of them came from when my in-laws moved (almost 10 years ago) from a 3 story house with full basement to a four room condo. I didn't realize until recently how much of the stuff that was in the old house found it's way to our house. I thought we did a pretty good job of turning them down, but it is now clear that we really didn't. (Avoiding the mounted buck's head seemed like a big victory at the time.) Most of it is just stuff - we don't need it and we don't particularly like it. We are not knick-knacky people, and my in-laws definitely are. Also, our taste levels differ wildly. So many of these items must go. I don't have room to store other people's cast-offs.
Now the trick is disposing of these things. Having had a couple, I am opposed to yard sales. I end up storing stuff that I do not want for months on end until I find a convenient day to hopefully have lots of people tromp all over my front lawn, with no guarantee that the stuff will actually depart. I like donating things, but some of the items can't be donated to my favorite charities, and some of it is actually worth enough that I am considering selling it on eBay or craigslist. I don't love that either, as it still means dedicating part of my house to storage until I take photos, figure out how much I want to ask for it and then hopefully sell and ship it. These are all steps that take me longer than they should. I think I am going to test run 1 or 2 items and then if it is too much of a hassle, I will have to freecycle them or figure something else out. I'm hoping that having a plan helps me to overcome my inertia on this. I'm becoming highly motivated to get the white elephants out - they take up too much space. I've also realized that many of them stress me out because of negative relationships with those who caused them to come into my home.
I am trying not to get too far ahead of myself with the decluttering, lest it become overwhelming. I get overwhelmed by this rather easily, and then instead of taking a few minutes to accomplish something small that moves me in the right direction, I find myself completely incapable of getting anything done.
I also promised myself that I will spend as much time as possible outside this summer. I will need to make this work with continuing to move myself forward with decluttering the indoors. Maybe I will commit to maintaining and making sure it doesn't backslide, then anything else I accomplish is icing on the cake. Yes, I realize I am playing mind games with myself, but it really does seem to work. I apply the same principle with my employees at work - set clear, attainable expectations. It works there, so why not give myself the same?
I am still digging out from when we were putting our addition on. One would think you'd start with this great, empty new space and only bring into it the stuff you need on day one. Unfortunately, there really isn't a day one when you do something like this unless you are living elsewhere! We wanted to get rid of the expense of having a storage unit as quickly as possible, so the furniture and boxes that were stored went right into - you guessed it - the new parts of our house. I am still digging out almost a year later. I got through 6 boxes this week!
In those boxes were many items that we no longer want or need. Many of them came from when my in-laws moved (almost 10 years ago) from a 3 story house with full basement to a four room condo. I didn't realize until recently how much of the stuff that was in the old house found it's way to our house. I thought we did a pretty good job of turning them down, but it is now clear that we really didn't. (Avoiding the mounted buck's head seemed like a big victory at the time.) Most of it is just stuff - we don't need it and we don't particularly like it. We are not knick-knacky people, and my in-laws definitely are. Also, our taste levels differ wildly. So many of these items must go. I don't have room to store other people's cast-offs.
Now the trick is disposing of these things. Having had a couple, I am opposed to yard sales. I end up storing stuff that I do not want for months on end until I find a convenient day to hopefully have lots of people tromp all over my front lawn, with no guarantee that the stuff will actually depart. I like donating things, but some of the items can't be donated to my favorite charities, and some of it is actually worth enough that I am considering selling it on eBay or craigslist. I don't love that either, as it still means dedicating part of my house to storage until I take photos, figure out how much I want to ask for it and then hopefully sell and ship it. These are all steps that take me longer than they should. I think I am going to test run 1 or 2 items and then if it is too much of a hassle, I will have to freecycle them or figure something else out. I'm hoping that having a plan helps me to overcome my inertia on this. I'm becoming highly motivated to get the white elephants out - they take up too much space. I've also realized that many of them stress me out because of negative relationships with those who caused them to come into my home.
I am trying not to get too far ahead of myself with the decluttering, lest it become overwhelming. I get overwhelmed by this rather easily, and then instead of taking a few minutes to accomplish something small that moves me in the right direction, I find myself completely incapable of getting anything done.
I also promised myself that I will spend as much time as possible outside this summer. I will need to make this work with continuing to move myself forward with decluttering the indoors. Maybe I will commit to maintaining and making sure it doesn't backslide, then anything else I accomplish is icing on the cake. Yes, I realize I am playing mind games with myself, but it really does seem to work. I apply the same principle with my employees at work - set clear, attainable expectations. It works there, so why not give myself the same?
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