Buttons, Thread, and Ribbons!

One of the best things about being crafty is getting your crafty supplies organized. Today, I went to G Street Fabrics and A.C. Moore arts and crafts to get supplies for some upcoming clothing reconstruction projects and found some sweet little jars for storing some of my supplies that weren't the best fit for my awesome sewing box my mom got for me. Here's my cute little solution:


Ryan loves the little button jar! Now, all I need is a craft room to put them in...

Projects

As a housegirlfriend, I have found myself with some time on my hands. I can only spend so many hours in the day applying for the few open jobs in higher ed around here and breaking up that time with my latest addiction: Bejeweled Blitz!

In order to avoid becoming a couch potato and developing carpal tunnel by typing and clicking, I spent some time this week doing some house projects.

First, I became acquainted with my sewing machine. My mom has sewed and crocheted stuff for my whole life, but it wasn't until the last time I was home in August that I asked her to show me how to use the sewing machine, especially since she bought me one a year ago and I hadn't even taken it out of the box and it's not practical to take all of our broken clothes home to Cali to be fixed! She even bought a little collapsible table for me to sew on since we got Love Sac instead of a kitchen table! This was my first sewing project...

I turned this old dress...
... into this new shirt!
For my next sewing project, I will be adding a button and button-hole to two of Ryan's shirts that don't button down far enough for his tall torso.

This week, I also spent a significant amount of time cleaning and rearranging my kitchen. I've been spending a lot more time in there lately and I was getting frustrated with how everything was arranged and I was tired of going to five different cabinets to get to the baking needs, spices, potatoes, canned food, and snacks, so I took advantage of Target's awesome sale this week to get a 5-shelf book shelf to use as a pantry! Now, all of my unrefrigerated food is in one place!!

These pictures show where all the food was until yesterday:


Now, all those cabinets are being used more efficiently and my food is all here:



You can even see the sewing machine peeking out on the left on the other side of the bar! I'm loving my kitchen now!

Homemade Granola

I just pulled this out of the oven and it is delicious!!

Money saving tip: buy the nuts whole in bulk, chop what you use with a food processor, and store the rest in the freezer til you're ready to make your next batch or use them in another recipe or as a snack.

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup hemp seeds or flax seeds
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup rice syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all dry ingredients and spices in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix wet ingredients and salt. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Pour mixture onto parchment paper and spread into a thin layer. Bake for 6 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and pour granola back into bowl. Replace parchment paper with fresh sheet, stir granola, and pour once again onto parchment paper. Spread into thin layer and spread into a thin layer again. Bake for 6 more minutes.

Remove from oven and allow 20 minutes to cool.

Can be eaten as cereal, as a yogurt topper, with fruit, or as trail mix. Can be stored in an airtight container for several weeks. You can even experiments with different combinations of nuts to find your favorite flavor. Enjoy!

Housegirlfriend

My gig as a Sweet Leaf Tea brand ambassador is over. It was fun while it lasted and nice to have a reason to get out of the house for a couple of days. Plus, who wouldn't like spending an afternoon in Whole Foods? I did have an interview yesterday at Coppin State University, an historically black university, for a Retention Advisor position. It's a 45-minute drive to get there, or a two-hour commute by train and bus when Ryan needs the car, and it pays a little less than I earned at AU, but it is a job in higher education and my unemployment will run out by the end of winter, so we'll see what happens. The director of the program, who would be my boss, seems very sweet and it doen't appear like it would be a high-stress work situation.

In the meantime, I am back to being a housegirlfriend! I really enjoy this job! Today, my highlight is making a homemade pie for the first time. I'm even making the crust! All vegan of course!

Elevator Excitement

Ryan and Jeff went to the Redskins game so I took advantage of the beautiful sunny 72 degree day to go on a a little adventure which turned out to be a bog adventure. The last time I biked the Capital Crescent Trail, I took the Metro from our apartment to the stop at the beginning of the trail. My ride then was about 7.5 miles and took an hour because I stopped at least 4 times for water and even more for pictures. Today I decided I wasn't going to cheat, so I began by biking to the beginning of the trail from my apartment and then down the trail to Georgetown. If you go straight from our apartment to the movie theater in Georgetown, it is 14 miles, so I am guessing I biked about 16 miles in 1.5 hours! I didn't need any breaks at all this time!

Highlights of the ride: a red-haired hippie with foot-long beard jogging barefoot, hard-breaking to avoid a squirrel (felt like that insurance commercial where the squirrels give each other a high-five), and the gorgeousness of the beginning of fall! It is still so green and the leaves on some trees are just beginning to turn. The sky is so blue in the fall too. It really was a gorgeous ride!

When I arrived in Georgetown, I went to the movies to see "Whip It!" Very entertaining! Kristen Wiig is hilarious! I recommend it!

There was no way I was biking all the way back home and I needed to get home in time to pick the boys up from the football game, so I biked about another mile into town to get on the Metro. The rules for taking bikes on the Metro stipulate taking the elevator and I tend to favor following the rules which ended up getting me in a lot of trouble this time... I got stuck in the elevator!!! I got in, pushed the button to go down and the door closed but nothing happened. I pushed the button to go down again, nothing happened. I pushed the button to open the door... nothing happened! Ah! I pushed the button to close the door, nothing happened! I pushed the button to open the door and it opened about a half an inch! Ah! I pushed the button to close the door and it closed, but didn't descend! Ah! After about 10 minutes of pushing buttons in different sequences and trying to pry open the door when it opened half an inch, I finally pushed the call button and the station manager had to come up and tinker with the door for while, finally getting it to descend. I didn't really panic because I was still at the top and could see out the little window, it was just kinda smelly and I was worried about being super late to get the boys. When I finally got to the tracks, I just missed my train and ended up being super late anyway! Grr! As I stood there, there was an announcement about which stations had elevators out of service, which is a daily occurrence, but it was the first time I heard of an elevator being out of service that I was just on!! Haha! What a day!

Sweet Gig

It has officially been over a month since my last day of work and it's been a weird month. We celebrated my freedom by going to California which was awesome and I have actually been mostly accepting of my unemployed status. I say mostly because the lack of a usual paycheck is just unsettling in general and it's tough having to pay for COBRA while knowing my options beyond that are limited. I am still waiting to hear if I have been approved by my third health insurance option. If I'm not approved, I have one option left. If that doesn't work, I'm stuck paying $400 a month until I luck into another career. I feel like it will have to be luck to get something because so many people are applying to the jobs I am applying to and so few are opening up in Student Affairs. I check weekly for updates and I am fortunate if I find one or two positions I am remotely qualified for in the meantime. So, this is what I am doing in the meantime:

1. Collecting unemployment! I paid into it and this is what it's for so I'm using it!

2. Participating in studies and focus groups! The free food provided by my vegan study inspired me to see what else I could score. I got $40, tax free, for doing a 45 minute questionnaire on my perspective of race and health.

3. Working on random gigs! This week and next week I am a Brand Ambassador for Sweet Leaf Tea, giving out samples of the teas and lemonade at Whole Foods in the area. I get paid for this all at once and it will be more than a week of unemployment which means I don't get my unemployment check the week I get paid, I get the higher check from the gig, and then reopen my unemployment claim and continue my search for full-time work in my field.

4. Writing! Ryan's dream is for me to write books at our beach house of the future while he body surfs all day... dream on my love! I'm brainstorming a novel and actually writing some short stories. I'm planning on entering some short stories in writing contests for publication and prize money. Some contests pay from $100 to $10,000 for a great story. I'm not counting on this one, but I'm doing my best. Don't be surprised if I send you a story for a helpful opinion!

I should write a story about dealing with being unemployed...

Jeff's coming tomorrow and we're super excited!! He picked a great time to come! The weather is awesome right now, DC is essentially void of tourists, and it's football season! Ryan's going to have a blast with him this weekend!