Do I have to go?

Back to work and reality tomorrow after a very nice, long break! I spent it relaxing, sleeping in, and catching up with some fantastic people. It feels like the two weeks went by extremely slow, which was alright with me!

Along with the reality of being back to work, I'd also like to get a good routine down of working out at least a few times a week (pray for me?), and actually COOKING my dinners at home. This will hopefully save me money and calories! I've already cooked the last two nights at home, which I promise you is an accomplishment for this Spinster.

Last night I had my New Year's Day staple of cabbage, black beans, and cornbread, and tonight just some leftovers with mac & cheese and a hot dog. Maybe it wasn't anything extravagant, but I hate to make dinner so it's a big deal for me!

I've been collecting lots of recipes on Pinterest lately, and making sure they are all realistic for me. When I see just one spice that I don't have, or an item that I wouldn't know where to look for in the grocery store, I move on. I should probably get over my phobia of making anything with more than three ingredients, but... baby steps. I am excited because I received one of those recipe exchange chain emails and this time I finally participated. I passed along a fantastic pizza dip that I had at a Christmas party a few weeks ago -- the best part, it's super simple!! How simple? you may ask...


Pizza Dip
1/2 lb sliced pepperoni
2 8oz pkgs cream cheese
2 cans condensed Cream of Celery Soup
Cut pepperoni into quarters; add cream cheese and celery soup (do not dilute).
Put in Crock-Pot on low and cook for at least 4 hours, stirring often as it begins to boil.

It's done when the cream cheese turns orange from the pepperoni.

It's been a minute

A reaaaal hot minute! I keep telling myself on a daily basis that I'm going to get back to blogging - because in all reality who DOESN'T want to read my thoughts on a daily basis - and it just seems like one more exhausting task for the day!

Thank goodness I was offered a last minute job in a 4th grade position and finally have MY dream job. It may not be anyone else's but it truly is mine and every day I'm reminded of that and how lucky I am for finding something I'm so passionate about and that I'm able to get paid for.

With that being said, teaching is the most exhausting job on the planet - out of all the experiences that I've experienced anyway! This polar bear TOTALLY gets my drift; he's role playing how I feel when I get home each day. So when I come home and I turn on my computer, as much as my quirky thoughts and ideas are at the tip of my tongue, it just seems to be a burden to release them onto the blogosphere.

Regardless, I'm gonna try to get with the program.

How my work Christmas party ended up with me throwing up in my bathtub: an anecdote

Last Thursday was my work holiday party. A week beforehand, I decided to take that Friday off as well so that I could be sure to finish my projects and homework that are wrapping up my first semester of teacher school (yay, me!).

Taking Friday off? Best. Decision. Ever.

The reason behind this is two-fold:
1. I was entirely too hungover to even function to come to work Friday.
2. I needed to work off a bit of shame from the night before.

Our party was at one of my boss' homes. A gorgeous house; very fancy. OOMA was my date (shocking, I know!) and I told him I wanted to get there in plenty of time to enjoy the open bar. The open bar was lasting all night. The party started at 7:00 p.m., but we got lost and the directions on both of our phones weren't working so we ended up there about 7:30; dinner was at 8:00.

When we arrived, I think OOMA was a bit nervous and I was just stressed out from life in general so we headed straight for the bar. I had 3 glasse of white wine in the 30 minutes before dinner. Not a smart move.

At dinner it all hit me at once, yet I told our waiter to be sure my glass was full at all times. Apparently I was 'hilarious' at dinner, according to OOMA. I pulled out my iPhone to play 'NSync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" because I was bored with the Josh Grobin Christmas CD playing in the background. I told my co-workers that I'm girlier than them and specifically apparently told one that she wasn't very girly at all. I'm sure there was MUCH, MUCH more that I'm missing out on.

After dinner and gift exchanges (who got what? I haven't a clue), we all gathered into another room where I had a conversation with one of my gay bosses (you know I love the gays so of course I work for TWO) where I think I remember mentioning something about my gay boyfriends, but I have no idea if I really did or not. I think I may have also shared that I'm going back to school. Neither of those topics would be amusing to him so I sure hope I didn't go there.

While there were just four of us left as guests and our hosts (other gay boss.. love) remaining, I apparently (and this is confirmed by a co-worker) told my boss that "all the gays are invited to my wedding." According to her story, he ran away. He must not have been too upset with me though because, according to another story, when I was walking out, we were hugging and almost fell into a fountain in front of his house. Now that would make for some nice employee bonding.

Somehow OOMA and I got home safely (thank you Jesus). I passed out on the couch while he had a party with himself in my kitchen. Somewhere in the night I moved to my bed and when I got up in the morning I walked into my living room to find what looked like we'd had all our friends over. I have no idea how one small apartment became so messy in the matter of a few hours.

So I layed in bed, stomach in pain- wondering what happend the night before, wondering if I'd have a job on Monday, wondering who I offended, wondering how we made it home safely. I decied a shower was necessary to try to feel a bit better. As I get ready to shower, I felt it coming... and there it was. In my bathtub. The evidence of the night before. Gross, I know. I cleaned it.

I was terrified to come into work Monday after the stories I'd heard from my behavior Thursday. I didn't do anything completely out of line, I was just loud, which everyone is used to. But I had no idea what my side conversations consisted of, and I had possibly offended one of my bosses in regards to his personal life.

Luckily, I still have a job. And luckily, I have learned to stay SOBER at all future work functions.

Back to School!

November 4 is the big day! My first day 'of the rest of my life...' you might say. I start classes for the teaching program I am starting and I am so thrilled! I haven't looked forward to something this much in a really, really long time. Although it will be almost another year of the usual rut, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!



I can't help but wonder what sort of life changes this will lead me to. Location. People. Etc... Or it may just be a career change with no personal-life change. Which is fine, too. For now.

Back to School, Back to School. . .

So after 3 and a half years of wondering 'what if' and 'where do I go from here,' I think I've finally figured it all out. The corporate, business-y world is not for me. And I've known that since probably the day I was born. I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I decided to get into my career field. "Event planning and entertaining, oh my!" Yeah, right.

Ever since I can remember I have said I wanted to be a teacher. When I was younger I was playing school with all of my dolls. I'd pretend to grade papers. I'd read to my stuffed toy classroom. I'd make my mom buy me stamps and stickers for the pretend papers I graded. (I probably had the best educated stuffed animals around!)

But when I got to college I was afraid of taking extra science and math classes that I knew I wouldn't be good at. I was afraid to take a few more standardized tests that I was afraid I wouldn't pass. And I dove into something easy, that I never had to study for and was able to just get by with. It wasn't until my last semester of college that I realized how much I absolutely hated my classes and the work I was doing and that was probably a good indication of how my big girl job would go.

I've regretted for years not following my heart in the first place. So, with much soul-searching, conversations with my mom and friends, and background research, I think I'm finally ready to do what's been nagging at me for so long. I'll be going home this weekend to talk to my dad about funding for my big plans (thank goodness for parents) and hopefully going back to school to do a 6-8 month program to become an elementary school teacher! It will be LOTS of hard work to be taking night and weekend classes on top of my regular full-time job, and between 3 weddings, bridal and baby showers, but I know it will be well worth it. I just feel like it's finally time to start doing what I WANT to do, rather than just getting by.

So, keep your fingers crossed for me that Daddy says *yes*...

A day at The Office

I make it a point to not discuss work on my blog. It's just not professional and I don't enjoy mixing my personal and professional lives. However, I MUST share this story from today. I'm going to use names from the show The Office to distinguish the real life characters. They will be Dwight, Andy and Kelly. And Pam pretty much defines my every day life.

So it begins in the breakroom. Andy doesn't usually eat lunch in there, but today he did for whatever reason. So at 12:30, like clockwork, Kelly and I went into the breakroom to eat. As we're both warming up our food in the microwave, Dwight walks in and asks what everyone is eating. Why it's necessary for him to know what we're eating, I'm not really sure. So, turns out that Kelly and I had both brought meatloaf. Random but funny.

After we each announce what we're eating, Dwight proceeds to tell us about something he recently saw on TV about eating meat. Whatever stupid show he saw, it apparently said that the human body doesn't need meat and blah blah blah. Oh, also that people live longer if they don't eat meat. Really? Because I don't fucking care. I'll die when I'm supposed to die and I don't need you telling me what I shouldn't be eating to keep me living past 90-years-old.

Dwight and Andy began debating about this back and forth.


Andy, very carefully and without being rude, seemed to be saying exactly what I was thinking. Dwight made himself sound like an idiot while lingering around. Kelly jumped in here and there to validate points, while I kept my head down reading my newspaper. Kelly knows me well enough to know I was annoyed and just wanted to eat lunch in peace without this idiotic conversation going on and without them in the room. She gave me a slant of the eye and we both smirked.

Finally something funny happend. Dwight said, "We'll I've been a juicer for about 7 years and that works well for me." Kelly shot back with, "Isn't that code for HEROIN?" I couldn't stop laughing on the inside. I tried not to show it on the outside.

Dwight finally retreated and left the breakroom, after wasting about 20 minutes of my peaceful lunch hour. And me, being Pam, just has this look on my face the whole time.

I love you Gchat!

As of late, my workload has been extremely low. Gone are the days that I had multiple client projects to work on, assignments to juggle and daily deadlines. I can't even remember the last time I had to manage my time on projects so that I could be sure to get it all done by the 5:00 hour.

Thanks to the economy, my company has been slow-goin's for quite some time now, and being at the bottom of the totem pole, that means I get the short end of the stick. My days are now kept busy with finding whatever I can do to keep myself busy, or keep myself looking busy at least.

But alas, there is one thing that has kept me sane during the dragging days. Google Chat! Thanks to Gchat, I can talk to my co-worker that sits in the back. I can gossip with my friend while she's at work on the other side of town. And, luckily, I can keep in touch with my Roomie who is miiiles and miiiles away!

It's not that I'm lazy and don't want to do any work. I'm all for staying busy and being productive in the workplace. There is just none to be done at the present time.

So, thank you Gchat inventors. You've totally become a lifesaver for my days of trolling the internet and being lonely. Now I'm surrounded by my friends on even the quietest days at work!