Bring Back the Words- Favorite Foods!

Love this prompt-

Prompt 1:

Make us all hungry–what are your top 10 favorite foods (individual foods, or full meals, your choice)? (Ginger's Bring Back The Words)

1. Lobster. Boiled lobster with butter to dip it in. Freshly boiled is divine. But I also like to eat very cold lobster in hot butter. The temperature difference makes it even better. My absolute favorite food of all time.
2. Strawberries. Fresh. 
3. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
4. Steak. Barely grilled. Filet is nice, but doesn't have the best steak flavor. Rare to black and blue for temperature. Over-cooked steak is a travesty. If you're going to get it Well Done, you might as well eat a shoe.
5. Apple pie. My Mom makes the best one in the world. Macintosh apples, strussel top.
6. Fried egg. I love a good fried egg. Just a touch runny in the yolk. 
7. Gnocchi. 
8. Caviar. I'm a horrible person, but I love really expensive, black Osetra caviar. We had an amazing tasting menu at Cesar's Palace in Vegas, and the caviar course was the thing that dreams are made of. 
9. Tuna sashimi (again with the raw)
10. Sweet Italian Sausage, with peppers and onions. Served as a sandwich or alongside some soft polenta.

Bring Back The Words- Where Have You Lived?

From Ginger's Bring Back the Words- Right here!

Prompt 2:

A getting to know you list–share all the places you’ve lived (and if you want to, how you got there, and why you left). Bonus points for expanding on whether you plan to stay where you are now, or if you have a dream location you still want to get to.

Aug 1978-June 1999- Weymouth, MA. A quaint town of 50K+, with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the area. I grew up there, on a suburban almost farm (we had chickens and horses). It was a nice place to grow up. I had lots of friends, tons of family around. I met my husband during our senior year of high school, in November 1995. 

Sept 1996-June 1999- Amherst, MA. Does college count? Because I went to UMass Amherst. Got a degree in accounting. Continued to date husband long distance (he went to Johnson & Wales in RI). It was fun. I coasted through college. It was easy. Especially because I did not want to be a CPA.

June 1999-July 2001- Providence RI. Did an internship at a company in Rhode Island. Husband had quit college after his associates degree, and had an apartment. I moved in with him. He supported me the last year of college, while I commuted from Providence to RI twice a week for my classes (100 miles each way, door to door), I continued to work part time for the company that I had done my internship with. They would hire me at graduation for a full time staff accounting position. Husband and I got engaged in January 2000, and married in October 2000. The years in Rhode Island were really fun. We had a lot of disposable income, and very few expenses. Husband knew a bunch of chefs in the area, so we were always going out to eat, and meeting with people for drinks. Providence is small, and our area of the city, Federal Hill, was even smaller. We walked everywhere. We vacationed a lot. But knew that we didn't want to buy a house in Rhode Island, so we were looking to relocate somewhere. In June and July 2001 I took a bunch of job interviews. Took a new job, and relocated.

July 2001- Present- Phoenix, AZ. We moved because I got sucked into a too good to be true job offer, in the then booming mortgage industry. Of course, it was a failure. But, by the time that company failed, we had purchased a house, and I was pregnant. And, the husband had started working for the Sheraton company in a venue that was starting to generate a lot of press. So, we hung on. Then, got pregnant for a second time. Sold the first house, bought the second house. Then, got pregnant for a third time. Husband now works for a very large food service company providing food services for an even bigger technology company. I manage a landscape company. The kids are all in school. We're stuck in the desert, and I hate it. We are holding out hope that husband's company transfers him anywhere but here (and New Mexico. I'm not moving to New Mexico).  

Cut Down on Spending Money Week 1

I've put a goal to myself to stop spending money on work lunches. This week I brought my lunch from home 4 out of 5 days. The day I missed, I actually made my lunch, but forgot about it, and left it in the fridge (Mondays, they're a bitch).

Money that I Spent (outside of necessary items, like household food)
Monday- Lunch from Q'doba- $7
Wednesday- It was my turn to buy the office candy- $20
Thursday- Bought The Brothers Sisters from Amazon, Kindle Daily Deal, $1.99. I heard it was good.
Friday- Breakfast sandwich- $5 (we ran out of eggs when I put together a bread pudding last night)
Total: $35.99

Things That Are Going To Screw Up My Budget

Philosophy. They have a good sale going on, and while I don't exactly NEED anything right now, I WANT some things right now. But, I'm resisting. So far.

Old Navy. Again, things I WANT rather than NEED. So, I've been doing the old fill up the online cart, and then forget about it trick.

So, why am I saving money? Well, the time has come to take my darling children to Disneyland. We've promised them this trip for Christmas 2014. That gives me a little over a year to sock away money, and do this trip right, because we're only going once. I have no love lost for Disney. The thought of spending thousands of dollars on this trip to hang out in lines with horrible screaming children- my own and other people's- basically gives me hives. To even begin to deal with this, I'm taking my parents along for moral support. That means we need three hotel rooms, or a family suite and a room. I can't sleep for a week in the same hotel room as my kids. I just can't. So, it's adjoined rooms or a family suite for us, and a separate room for my parents. My Dad also has limits, and staying in a hotel room with children is one of them. My Dad also will not be going to Disney. He'll hang at the hotel pool or find other things to occupy his time. He did Disney with us when we were children, he has no want to do Disney with his grandchildren.

What’s your very earliest childhood memory?

This is part of Ginger's Bring Back The Words Prompts

I'm not taking part in this on a regular basis, but my Earliest Childhood Memory is really specific, and strange, so I thought I'd share with you all.

My earliest childhood memory is from when I was about 3 years old. We apparently went to Disney World for the first time (I've seen pictures, I was there for sure). But, the only thing I remember is getting off the plane and walking across the tarmac. It was so hot, and the smell of asphalt was so strong! I remember nothing about Disney- this is why I've waited so long to take my own kids, I'm not dropping thousands of dollars on a trip I'll hate and they'll not remember. But I remember walking across the tarmac.

I really don't remember much about my childhood. Honestly. There are a few memories that stand out, but things are pretty blurry until maybe 10 or 12 years old. At the same time, certain things will trigger very clear memories of very specific events when I was much younger than 10 or 12. For example, when we buried my grandfather in 1998, I got a very clear flash of going to that very same cemetery with him. We- my brother and I- were playing around the graves, and I remember watching my grandfather plant flowers on his mother's grave. I was only 4 or 5. I can remember what I wore that day. What we ate for dinner. What he wore that day. But I can't remember Christmas of that year. It's strange.

So You Want To Get A Job?

The company I work for frequently gets walk-ins who are looking for a job. With these people in mind, I have put together a helpful list of items/pitfalls to avoid that potential job applicants might find useful.

1. Be sober. Don't come looking for a job application when you are drunk or high. Especially if you come in at 8 in the morning. If you can't be 100% sober, at least don't use whiskey as a mouth wash. If I feel like I'm getting a contact high from the fumes emanating from your body, your application will be shredded as soon as you leave the office.
2. Wear shoes. Now, I know you CAN wear bedroom slippers outside of your home when they have some sort of substantial soles, but it doesn't mean you should. 
3. Know what the company does. For example, I work for a landscape company. We don't have any job openings for waiters.
4. Don't bring your Mom in to fill out your application. If you can't put your name and phone number on a piece of paper without Mom's help, we won't be trusting you with big pieces of machinery with sharp blades.
5. (Maybe 4a?) Mom is not your best choice for a reference. But, surprisingly, your Probation Officer is a good choice.
6. Don't complain about how long it took you to get to the office. You'll be starting and ending each work day at this office, so if it bothers you so much, find someplace closer to your house to apply.
7. Don't complain about how hot you got just walking down the street. This is a labor intensive job, done OUTSIDE. You don't like the heat, move to another state. 
8. If you must bring your children along to pick up an application, at least be in control of them. Don't let them wander around the office unsupervised or let them trash the bathroom. 
9. You might think your hat with a pot leaf on it is a good look. It's not.
10. Don't have a phone argument while you're sitting in the waiting area. Calling someone on the phone a "crazy bitch" and yelling other obscenities at her isn't giving us the best opinion of you. 

This list shouldn't be considered the be all, end all of all How To Get A Job blogs, but I'd like to think it's been helpful in just a little way. 

Is There An Emoticon for Slightly Homicidal?

I had a quick trip this weekend to Massachusetts. Left on Thursday night, came home to Phoenix on Sunday night. After yesterday's flight I was feeling slightly homicidal. I had to go into the airport an hour early, because my aunt's flight was an hour before mine, and it wouldn't be fair to my parents to make them do the Logan drive twice. That wasn't so bad- hung out at Boston Beer Works, and watched the hockey game.

Then, I get on the plane. I'm next to this Alzheimer's patient and her caregiver. The patient is freaking out about something, and proceeded to have loud verbal outbursts and panic attacks the entire flight. Honestly, it was really bad. And, this was their return trip home to Phoenix. This woman was in no shape to be flying, and whoever ok'd the flight in the first place screwed up. Noise cancelling headphones can only do so much.

Behind me was a very tall man. I couldn't put my seat back, because of his legs. No big deal. He asked me nicely, I complied. However, that didn't stop him from digging his knees into the back of my seat every 15-20 minutes during the last two hours of the flight. Somewhere over Colorado I turned around to him and called him out on it. Then when he wouldn't stop, I got passive aggressive and pushed back against him whenever he moved his knees. We're probably both bruised this morning, and I know that had I been a man and a foot taller, he probably would have punched me outside of the airport. As it was he called me a bitch and I told him to fuck off at the luggage carousel.

Don't get me wrong, I was happy I was able to get back for the weekend, but damn, I'm sore and tired this morning!

Kid's Writing Prompt

My kindergartener's teacher does a daily writing prompt with them, just to have them get in the habit of writing sentences. I got the April booklet home yesterday, and I was looking at them with my daughter. My favorite was "If I Won a Lot of Money." Avery's response was classic Avery:

If i wone alot of mony i wold bue a car. Becus mom is meen and wont bue me a car.
Translation: If I won a lot of money, I would buy a car. Because Mom is mean and won't buy me a car.

Avery is 5. We've not yet had the car discussion with her. I don't know where her response came from. I clarified with her that she meant a car to drive, not a play car. So, she still has 11 years before that happens. My husband and I died laughing at this one. The logic and scheming of this child is frightening. She will probably rule the world one day.