I have been given a gift

I am special. Not that kind of special. I am gifted. Everyone has those useless talents that get them nowhere in life, but make for a great conversation piece. After 24 years on this planet, I have finally found it.

I am amazing at looking at a picture of a person or animal and figuring out who or what they look like. Usually it's an obscure celebrity. Sometimes it is a cartoon character. But always it is dead on.

Kelly is the first person (and to my knowledge, the only person) to point out this talent. We were at her house doing some creeping on Facebook. We stumbled upon pictures of someone's baby and tried to figure out who it looked like. It was not a cute baby. 99.9% of the time, I find babies adorable. This baby was not cute in the slightest. Poor little guy. He looks like a cracked out version of Leslie Jordan. 

This talent probably started when I was in high school I remember Emily telling me that she associates people with animals whenever she meets them. I have no idea why, but I would catch myself doing the same thing, except I didn't just limit it to animals. I guess it could also stem from the human tendency to associate people with something with which we are familiar. I guess I am pretty caught up in pop culture, as much as I hate to admit it. 

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. There really was no point to this post other than I am bored. 

Patience is also a form of action. ~Auguste Rodin

Keeping my head up finally paid off :) I am more excited about what's happening in my life right now than I ever have been. I've always believed that good thing come to those who wait. I've waited long enough and good things are finally happening.

A couple weeks ago, our full time specialist quit. I immediately called my manager to ask to talk to her about the possibility of taking over the full time position. We set up a time to meet the next day. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. She seemed pretty pumped that I asked, so I didn't really think I had anything to worry about, but the last thing that I wanted was to get my hopes up and then have her say no. We talked and she offered me the job. She said she pretty much wanted to offer it to me over the phone, but it was more professional in person.

This honestly could not have come at a better time. Money has been short lately. I hadn't been getting a lot of hours at work, so I was looking for other jobs. I had applied to a couple other positions within our store, but I didn't hear anything. I was getting very frustrated. On top of that, I really want to move out, but I was not making the money to do so. Granted my raise wasn't a whole lot, but I am getting more hours. Plus, I had my one year review and I got a 30 cent raise from that. That's a total of an 80 cent raise within the last month or so. I won't complain.

Another great thing that happened is that a friend from Milwaukee might move back to the Twin Cities after this summer. Um, excited? Yes. I was talking to her on Tuesday and she had said that her mom had mentioned moving in with her sister. Her sister who lives in an efficiency apartment. They would have a trundle bed. There is no way, according to her, that that would happen. She asked if I would want to live with her. YES! Is that even a question? We would have a TON of fun! Plus, we are pretty much the same person, so we would make great roommates. AND, financially it would make more sense to live with a roommate than to even get a studio apartment by myself.

Nothing is for sure decided on the apartment thing, but I am really, really hoping that it happens.

Embarrassed to be American

I came across this today on a friend's Facebook page. I was completely disgusted and some of the comments made me want to cry.

My mind is not forming coherent thoughts right now, so this won't be a lengthy blog post. Maybe I will come back and edit it, but probably not. A lot of the comments are about god punishing Japan for Pearl Harbor. Pretty sure we did a good job of that when we fought back. The disaster in Japan had nothing to do with god being pissed off at Japan; it was a naturally occurring event.

The bottom line: America, we need to get over ourselves. We are like the annoying popular girls in high school and I am sick of it.

Expanding My Culinary Horizons

I come from the land of hotdishes and jello "salad". Most people's culinary palates aren't what you would consider refined. We put ketchup on everything (I know two people who have eaten and enjoyed ketchup sandwiches; my grandpa always eats mashed potatoes with ketchup on it if gravy isn't available), seasoning for most people is limited to salt and pepper, and everything is too spicy.

Okay, so I am generalizing. I can only speak for myself. I grew up on a very bland diet. My grandma's idea of meatloaf is eggs, bread crumbs, and hamburger. No onions, no seasoning, just the basic ingredients. My mom mixes anything she can with cream of mushroom soup. A staple in our home is ground hamburger, cream of mushroom soup, and instant potatoes. Oh god, don't get me started on instant potatoes. It's like baby cereal. Every once in awhile, my mom and step-dad get crazy and buy garlic instant potatoes. Variety is not the spice of life in my household and some sort of red meat is consumed at least 3 nights a week (overcooked chicken or boring pork chops, leftovers,  pizza delivery, and Green Mill take up the rest of the nights). My point is, I have been trying to spice up my diet for quite a few years now. I have forced myself to eat different foods that I have never liked or have never tried. I have learned what goes well with what and I like to try different combinations. Some are really weird (like the time I added cinnamon to Sloppy Joe's. Why? Because I wanted to see what it would be like. Word to the wise, not good, but at least I tried).

When I went away to college, that helped some. Though I was mostly eating cafeteria food, I was still able to experiment on my own when I was on duty over break and when I worked at school over the summer. I slowly introduced myself to good food. I also went to my cousin's a lot and he is an AMAZING cook. He actually likes flavor.

Now that I am back at home, cooking is harder. Not only do I not have a lot of money to spend on good food, but our stove and oven are pieces of shit and don't properly work. It makes me sad, but I still do get to cook every once in awhile. Going to Kelly's helps a lot because they actually cook good food and eat vegetables and spices. I love it.

Tonight my step-dad got this new Philadelphia Cream Cheese stuff. It was Italian Herbs and Spices or something like that. He decided to make chicken and noodles and mix everything together. It was actually decent, aside from the consistency. I have a weird thing about consistency, so I didn't finish it. The reason he chose to do that was because there was a recipe on the container for it. The recipe called for other things like green onions and zucchini (two things that I happen to be fond of), but my mom "doesn't like them" so we had to leave them out. Now, I highly doubt my mom even knows what zucchini tastes like. But oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now.

My step-dad and I also got into a heated debate about canned vs. frozen vegetables. Now, if possible, I love fresh vegetables, but sometimes they are out of season so I go with frozen. My step-dad HATES frozen vegetables apparently. He prefers canned. If someone told that if I had to eat canned vegetables or die, I would probably die. I loathe canned vegetables; they make me want to vomit. They have that tin can taste to them and lord knows how long they've been sitting in that sugar infused water. Bleh. It makes me want to puke just thinking about it.

Anyway, this was more of just a "I can't sleep, so I am going to blog" post. If anyone has any good ideas for recipes I should try, just let me know :)

Holy Hell, I suck at this blog thing

Really, my life isn't so overwhelmingly busy that I don't have time to blog. Most of the time I just plumb forget about it. Oh well, it's a terrible excuse, but it's the best I got.

Kelly and I started our Lia Sophia business. We are really excited about it, but right now it's really discouraging. We are having a huge problem finding people to have parties and most of the people who decide to have a party either cancel (to be fair, once it was because of a snow storm and the other time the hostess has mono (I swear that if I get mono, Chittles, you are dead)) or have all of 2 people show up. It's frustrating, but we can't blame everything on the hostesses. We didn't get the guest lists like we should have and we definitely need to work on our hostess coaching skills. We also need to find a hostess that we snowball off of. She has a party, her friends book parties, their friends book parties, etc. We are hoping that her mother-in-law to be will help with that. If not, we are planning on going up and down Summit Ave and putting our business cards in mailboxes and stuff. If you know anyone that wants to have one, just let me know! :)

My other job is going just swell. I actually am liking it a lot more than I ever thought I would. It's mostly the people I work with (okay, like 2 of the people I work with). Aside from a couple run-ins with the spawn of satan, I have had really awesome customers. I finally feel like what I have been doing is getting recognized. We have these "Magic" cards that workers can fill out when they want to recognize great work done by associates. Twice in one week I got one. Neither of them from my manager. One was from another manager, Heather. It was for excellent customer service. Apparently a customer called in and said that I was really great with her. I was SUPER excited about that. I have a feeling I know which customer it was and I loved helping her! She was so sweet. The other was from the STORE manager, Jen. The freaking STORE manager. It was for reaching my loyalty goal for February. I was giddy when I found out that I reached it because that is one of the things that I am working hardest at. I also found out that Nancy recommended me for an award (what?!?!). It just finally feels good to know that I am actually doing a good job and people are noticing.

Nancy also said I should talk to our manager about being a manager myself. Yikes! That's a scary thought, but definitely something I wouldn't mind doing.

Stuck

That is how I have been feeling lately; like I am in quicksand and there's no way out. When I look back on my life, did I imagine this is where I would be at 24? Absolutely not. Still at home with a job that's less than ideal (though I actually don't mind it as much as I thought I would), and having no fricken clue what I want in life. I don't know what I want to do. Every time I have even the slightest idea, something changes it. Not getting into grad school completely changed the student affairs idea; maybe I am not cut out for it. Maybe I am just supposed to stay stuck in life. Now I feel like I am wasting my time at Hamline. I don't feel passion for it anymore and it makes me extremely sad. Part of me, a very big part of me, just wants to give up on it.

In the past, I would say that it's all my fault. Even now, I take complete responsibility. I am so scared I am going to end up like my mom; living paycheck to paycheck and just being stuck. I don't know how to get out of it. I don't have that drive that I had anymore. It's completely lost. People tell me to just do it. Get out of the rut, but I just can't. I don't have it in me. I feel like I am fighting for nothing. In the end, I just always end up disappointed in myself.

I am not writing this blog to ask for advice (actually, it was more of a "I need to write before I go insane" blog post) and while I appreciate it, I don't want it. I don't want to hear that everything is going to be okay and things will work out. I know this sounds harsh, but I've been hearing that  my entire life and clearly it hasn't done anything. The people that read this on a regular basis, I consider friends, very dear friends that I love very much, and that's what I need. I need a friend. I need someone to say that they don't know what's going to happen, but whatever happens or wherever I end up in life, they will love and support me.

Almost a whole month?!

Has it seriously been almost an entire month since I've written anything?? Holy crap. I am blaming school, work, and the fact that I am now hooked on Grey's Anatomy and I have been watching pretty much nonstop. Thanks, Emily :) If you don't watch the show and you like drama, watch it. Even if you don't like drama, watch it. It actually tackles a lot of good issues, political and personal. I love it.

Speaking of political issues, I read something that I find slightly disturbing today. NewSouth Books, a publishing company, is essentially rewriting Huck Finn. They are replacing the N-word with "slave". Now, don't get me wrong, I hate that word. I think it's awful and anyone that uses it is completely ignorant. However, in this context, I think it's important. It really paints a picture as to what life was like during that time. Not only that, but Mark Twain didn't use that word for kicks and giggles; he had a point.

Now, I don't think 5th graders should be reading it, but I certainly don't see any problem in high schoolers reading it. I think that it can spark some really good conversation and Huck Finn, in it's original context, can be a great teaching tool for students. It tackles such an important issue, race at a time when it was at it's worst (well, overt racism was at its worst anyway). Teachers aren't just handing out books and saying, "here read this" without discussing it. The whole point of their job to to teach their students about stuff like this.

I guess my biggest issue is book banning in general. I am sick of people coddling kids and shielding them from bad things. They think they are protecting them, but they are doing so much more harm than good. By not allowing kids to see the bad in the world, they won't know how to deal with it when it does happen to them. By not introducing them to the problems of the world, they can lose critical thinking skills; they won't know how to solve problems because they've never had to do it before.

Now look, I understand that they may just want to be politically correct and sensitive, which I appreciate. But I don't think that's the way to go about it. I think that having a discussion about the word in classrooms is what is needed. Pretending that it doesn't exist does such a disservice.

I am sorry if that seems jumbled; I feel like it's jumbled. Oh well, I am going back to Grey's :)