My choice? High class escort

After foolishly taking last week off from cooking anything, I made chicken stew on Sunday night. This is one of my favorite recipes from my childhood, and an all-around awesome winter meal. (Of course it decided to turn marginally warmer on Sunday, so its not exactly weather appropriate anymore. Whatevs.) I *think* this is my mom's recipe, but it may have been handed down from her mother. Either way, its a great meal. It turned out to be really easy, though it did take a good amount of time. I don't think I put enough milk in it, so next time I make it, I'll know better.

I'm learning with this cooking thing, though, that making a large quantity of something in the beginning of the week makes it far less appetizing by the end of said week. I'm only on day 3 of chicken stew, and I know its going to be a struggle to eat it again come Friday. Hopefully, my pallet will continue to tolerate the taste until the weekend. We'll see.

In other aspects of life, I've been turned down for or have not received interviews for about four more jobs, which is awesome. I also had a minor break up with running last week, but thankfully was able to push past it. I did a little over 7 miles this past weekend at a sub-9 minute pace, so that's a good motivator for me. I'm hoping to run around 25 this week, doing 10 on two different days. I don't know how smart this is, but both times I'll be running with someone, so I'll have actual human motivation. I had a great run last Thursday in the rain, and even took Piper out for 2 and a half of the 4 I did. She was soaked and was all too happy to be done, but it assuaged my guilt a bit to get her outside.

This past weekend was pretty great..I got to babysit for my nephew on Friday night, and got to see my brother-in-law for the first time since August. On Saturday we had a big get together with my mom's family to celebrate Christmas, so lots of love was felt and it was a really nice day.

I'm struggling to get a grip on this whole employment thing, and I think I figured out last night why this is affecting me so much. I'm not normally so worried about having a job or finding one because everything's just always happened serendipitously in the past. Well, this time, I can't rely on things just 'happening'. I have to actually make them happen, because I don't have the luxury of just moving somewhere and doing something ridiculous for a few years. I have to have an actual job now. There's no way of getting around it. I have the degree, or will have, so why can't I get a job? It has never made any sense to me that employers ask you to have a certain number of years experience BEFORE they hire you. How are you supposed to get the experience if no one will hire you?

I also think I have to stop talking about, or complaining about it (which is really what I'm doing in essence) because I get really upset when people offer platitudes as advice. No, I'm sorry, I don't have plenty of time. I am literally, literally running out of time every single day. And, yes, I have applied to positions outside my field. And, yes, I am volunteering. And, yes, I understand that everyone is swamped with applications and they are having to turn down millions of applicants. Unfortunately, hearing any of these things does not make me feel better. It actually makes it worse, especially the last one, because it means that I wasn't quite good enough to even garner an interview.

From now on in response to the 'What are you doing after graduation' questions, my patent reply shall be, 'I'm not sure. I can't decide between nannying and being a high class escort.' People who know me well will (hopefully) understand that I'm somewhat kidding (at least in regards to the escort path; nannying might not actually be so bad).

So, here's to being a high class escort. I could totally be arm candy.