My Charitable Husband!

See something missing? Guess-- please tell me you noted in a blog post a few months ago that I swore this thing was going to be gone, and now (squeal!) it is! I'll give you a hint... it's oversized, a nasty shade of green, and we never sat in it...

YUP! The Armchair! My husband's loved and prized armchair, which I have hated since well, forever, is gone! You know what the surprising thing is? He got rid of it! A friend of ours has been feeling poorly, and had been saying that if only he had something nice and soft to recline in, he would feel so much better. So my charitable husband volunteered his armchair, on long term loan. (Or so he thinks....mwhahahaha)

Genius comes in many many tiles.

I've developed a slight addiction to an iphone app called "words with friends." Apparently, I'm the last person on the planet to figure this out, but it's been really popular for awhile now. Basically, it's scrabble on the phone, and you take turns between yourself and friends. Did I say it was ridiculously addicting?

Well, our family played an actual game of real scrabble and did surprisingly well. Are we the only ones who discuss the merits of a good board? I hope not, because this is worth sharing:

Great Board, huh? And you know, I almost won. My mother beat me out last minute. Go figure.

Sunny Day, Sweepin' the Clouds Away...

So this pic was taken actually a week or so before the warmest day of the year.

But the idea is the same... GLORIOUS! The weather here in Austin has finally warmed up, and it's changed everyone's mood-- hello happy! This past week Mom and I got together with our friend Connie and had creative craft day. I didn't actually make anything crafty, but instead I got a good four to five hours in of quality writing.

Something about sunshine is so inspirational!

Job Interview

As many of you may well know, a few weeks ago I excitedly posted on my facebook that I had a job interview. I've been looking for a job with an administrative type role for awhile, and fortunately, I have the luxury of taking my time, and really looking for a job that I would enjoy. While the unemployment rate in Austin is a lot lower than the rest of the country, it's still an extremely competitive job market out there, and believe it or not with my fabulous resume, I haven't gotten many leads. So I was really surprised, and kind of thrilled that I got a call back from a company I had sent my resume to-- mind you I had sent my resume out to many many different companies, so when they called, I had them describe themselves to me. They're a moving company that's been in business 10 years, primarily in Florida, and they just moved their headquarters to Austin. We agreed on a date and right before we got off the phone, they told me to bring my drivers licence and social security card with me.

That last little bit didn't sit well with me-- who brings that kind of information to a job interview? Were they just looking for a warm body to do some kind of work-- not someone with my sweet and awesome skills? It kept bothering me-- really deeply bothering me, that something just wasn't right. So, I turned to my friend, the trusty internet, to do a little research. Since they're now a national company with offices in both Florida and Texas, I figured that someone out there had worked for them and probably said something about it online. All I googled was the company name and the phrase "work for."  I dare you to look at the results you get on the 5th, 6th, 7th (and so on) hits on the internet. I'll let the search results do the talking, but the gist is this: This is one moving company you really REALLY don't want to hire, and if you have a shred of moral fiber in your body, one that you really don't want to work for.

I felt kind of sick. What do you do in a situation like this? I decided that professionally, I was obligated to go to the interview, even if I wanted nothing to do with the company. At least it was good interview practice right? This is what greeted me the morning I got there:

 

Yup, it was a warehouse, and really quite creepy. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with working out of a warehouse, it was just obvious from the other kinds of companies next door that these people weren't of the same caliber: no logo, no obvious service industry. No happy people going about their happy business. Just half of the company name on the door and an address. Believe me, it only gets better.

I get inside and the woman who is supposed to interview me, isn't even there yet. While I'm waiting I can overhear the receptionist on the phone having a conversation that went like this:

Receptionist: "Ma'am, hi I just talked to the driver, and he doesn't know when he's going to be there. (pause) Well, yes I understand, but he just doesn't know. He was in a bit of a hurry, he was loading a truck, (pause) Right, but I just can't give you a firm date of when the truck will arrive. (longer pause) Well, he did mention something about Monday (pause)"

I tuned out after that and then my eye caught a post it note, stuck to the side of a computer monitor. It read, "FRAUD. Paul, 555-555-5555"

The woman who interviewed me finally came in. She looked like she came from Jersey Shore and had an accent and make-up to match. Before interviewing me, she instructed the receptionist to and I quote, "go into these old contracts and change these parts" Not change the template for the contracts to reflect new policies-- but to change old contracts with people already attached to them-- change those contracts. So honest, so honest.

We went into the actual warehouse, where believe it or not, from floor to ceiling high were people's belongings, stacked in nice neat rows. This was not as they advertise, secure and climate controlled. Believe me, with minimal effort you could break into that place. And it was frigidly cold, because it was basically outside.

The rest of the interview was fairly normal, but it was shot as good interview practice. I kept fearing a member of the russian mafia was going to come out from the stacks of furniture, guns blazing, swearing, spitting caviar and swigging vodka, and threaten me to take the job. The result was me giving the worst interview ever: I sat on the edge of my seat, nodded a lot, and said "Uh-huh" with the best Minnie Mouse voice you have ever heard.

It was an experience to be sure. In fact, it's downright hilarious, and I still have a hard time believing it actually happened. What's even more is that I can't believe in this day in age, as a dishonest person you think you can do bad business and that a record of it won't show up on the internet. Just a moderate amount of research gave me the whole truth about this company that is now attempting to continue bad business in another part of the country, escaping their record in Florida. Not so. We live in an age of a binding record of truth on the internet, one that for the most part, can never be erased. If you harm, hurt, mislead others or attempt to cover up your lying, cheating, scandalous self, you will fail. The internet will more than likely reveal your true self. If there was a lowest common denominator for living a moral life, that would be it. The real benefit of doing honest good work is a peaceful conscience.

So that peeps, is my story. And if you happen to be in need of someone with great administrative and leadership skills, awesome creativity, an articulate writing style as well as serious web savvy knowledge, for the record, I am your woman. You can check out and download my current resume at the bottom of my linked in page.

Snow Day!

Behold:

 

Indeed last week, the great white fluff visited our very own backyard, (or front yard I suppose) and fell from the sky like fluffly little cotton puffs all the day long. I think Arthur would have prefered we go out and make a snowman or something, but since I spent the past 5 years enduring altogether too much snow in Utah, the appeal of snowtime play has dwindled considerably. AND to top it off, I was terribly sick. Seriously, on the day it snowed I had the worst cold of all time, and I spent most of the day in a Nyquil induced snooze.

So sad.

Love, Love, Love

A year ago, on Valentine's Day, Arthur proposed to me. It was awesome, and a memory we will truly cherish. And now, the day that is supposidly crass commercialism, is significant for us. Here's what we did this year:

 

On Saturday Morning, we saw this movie. And I have to say, it kinda sucked. There were some performances and some story lines that were meaningful and memorable (particularly Julia Roberts') but on the whole: crappy chick flick. Comes nowhere near Love Actually, which is what I think Gary Marshall (the director) was aiming for.

 

We then visited my favorite trailer cuisine in town: Hey Cupcake! Arthur indulged in the Double Dose, and I took on the amazing delicious Red Velvet.

 

I may or may not have helped a certain sibling create this flower arrangement for his significant other. It was fun pretending to be a florist for half an hour.

 

Finally we concluded our pre-valentines day celebration with Pizza and Beer (of the root variety) and a little Olympic Games watching. Sometimes, its the simple things that really make your heart feel a flutter.

 

Not to be outdone, Arthur brought me home these lovelies. I'm not a traditional rose fan, but these just said beautiful!

 

Finally, for the actual Valentine's Day, we got together with our friends Michele and Justin and had a little celebration, complete with Valentines Day cake. 

Now, this may look like a nice chocolate cake, with a lovely pink frosting heart-- but you would be wrong. This is the one, the only, THE strawberry cake.

Once upon a time, I lived with a girl named Lindsay D. We had only been roommates for a month or so when valentines day rolled around, and the rest of us roommates hadn't experienced her baking prowress, when she whipped out this little sucker--- THE strawberry cake. Being stupid idiots, we shared the cake with our close guy friends, and created somewhat of addiction for our close friends at the time. For the following year, at every birthday celebration, every party, every chance where you might think "Oh I might make a cake" (which in Provo, is like every other week) Lindsay and her fabulous cake showed up. I have seen this cake gone and devoured  in less than five minutes. It is a legend.

Lindsay never claimed that the recipe was her own, and openly admitted that it came from a book called "The Cake Doctor." After copying the recipe myself, and recreating the cake at my grandmother's house, did I discover that the recipe is actually, over 50 years old (or thereabouts). My great-grandmother loved this cake as much as I do, and my grandmother had a copy of the recipe in her own mother's hand, to whip out and show me that THE strawberry cake, has been somewhat of a legend, for quite sometime. 

The secret is fresh strawberries in both the cake and the cream cheese frosting. I have noticed that some people aren't as big cream cheese frosting fans as others, so bearing this in mind, I now only use the cream cheese frosting in between the layers of the cake, and as decor on top. 

If you'd like a copy of THE Strawberry cake recipe, comment, and I'll email you a copy. Trust me, my great grandmother and I (and about 100+ other Provo-ians) aren't liars-- this is a real crowd pleaser.

what's it called, a sabbatical?

After my last disastrous post, in which I probably offended everyone I know, and worried most of the general populous, I decided it needed to be deleted. I'm not going to post on here until I can feel comfortable with writing about things that make me happy and that people want to hear about. Besides, I really want to devote all of my writing energy towards my project.

Maybe I'll just post pictures in the mean time.