Ch ch changes

I start my new job tomorrow at High Grove. I am nervous and excited but mostly just ready to get to work. I started my training at Cocoa Michelle today and can already make a mean latte. My mom is really sick with either the flu or some kind of food poisoning, so I have been the mom for the past few days. And since my family will not know what to do once I start work 11 hour days, I made a weeks worth of food for them today. This included:

Shredded chicken with bacon, onions, shallots, pepper, smoked spiced and agave nectar.
Pork carnitas with cranberries and thyme.
Fajitas.
Hamburgers stuffed with chives and Havarti cheese.
Golden raspberry and blueberry jam.
Baked potato and ginger ale for my sick mama.

This all occurred in the past... three hours. Minus the jam, which I haven't made yet. Again, I'm a busy girl these days. I am so so so excited for what is ahead. I feel like I've got my groove back, now that my days are full of things to do. It feels good.

Babygirl got a Grown up job!

I'm officially employed. Office assistant at a real estate development company. I have my own office and I get to go to a cocktail party on Thursday.

Needless to say I'm freakin excited right now.

Cooking Frenzy

I dedicate this post to my favorite, Chad Blank, who always appreciates the food I've made.

Tonight: Chicken with fig sauce, and braised vegetables (zucchini, squash, artichokes, garlic, shallots, carrots, and asparagus)

Tomorrow: Seared Magret duck breasts and a balsamic cherry reduction, pan-roasted fingerling potatoes, and haricots verts

Saturday night: Roasted pork tenderloin with pears, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and spinach salad with homemade apricot salad dressing

Sometimes I just loooooooove to be home... where I can cook and not pay.

Living the Moment to the Fullest

"Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand."
-Henri Nouwen-

My lovely best friend sent me this quote by one of our favorite authors. It is good to be reminded that patience (for the right job, right city, right man, right time, etc) includes finding joy in present circumstances. I guess, as may be clear from other posts, that I'm at a point where really nothing in my life this year is going the way I had hoped or planned. A trait I inherited from my father, I am always looking forward to the next thing. I hope and plan and excite myself over things that are maybes and uncertainties. Often I am disappointed but I don't stay down for long, as I am soon looking for the next adventure. I'm not sure if I do this to keep myself motivated or if it means I am discontented. I think I have labeled this time in my life as a "phase" to get through and a bridge that will lead me to a place that I want to be. Perhaps I need to stop thinking forward for a moment and find the beauty in my life as it is this very second.

Some of you know my life might be changing again pretty soon. Depending on how a certain situation goes I will be heading in one of two very different directions. I could really use your prayers. God is good and I know He will provide no matter what the circumstance.

My sister calls it "twenty oh nine"

Well... I had a rockin New Years Eve. Had to work at 10, so to avoid CT snow the night before, I left home at 5:30 am... on an hour and a half of sleep. Needless to say I was exhausted that day. I planned around 7:30 to just close my eyes for a moment so that I could gain consciousness before I went to a party that Sarah had invited me to go to with her.

And I woke up just moments before the ball dropped. Woops. Happy new year to me!

Well, can my resolution for 2009 be figuring out what I want to do in 2009? Believing in my heart that I have been placed in Harrisburg for a reason, I have taken it upon myself to consider daily what my next step should be (not worrying, just... pondering). Stillllll pretty clueless. I keep asking God to illuminate something for me... don't have to push me just guide me. I read a book last year that suggested that the "will of God" is really more of a guide for us to live our day to day lives... that God is in the small decisions that become the building blocks of our character and our life-paths. That we are free to make the big decisions without fear that it is the "wrong" one. Which I like, but then... doesn't God have a plan for my life as a whole? Aren't there right places and wrong places to go, good and bad decisions? Isn't there somewhere I am preordained to be when August comes? Or should I just keep pursuing what sounds good to me, and God will close doors as necessary...? Any thoughts?

Ok I have to go to work. I'll probably still be thinking about this there.