Busy, Busy, Busy…

I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t been able to blog, read, etc… but life finally seems to be settling down. My job is going better than I ever imagined it could. (In fact it wasn’t until I started at my new job that I realized how bored and miserable I was at my old one.) However it does keep me busier than I’ve ever been before. Between work and freelancing I don’t think I’ve really had any time to myself in almost 2 months. So this week I’m forcing myself to take some time and enjoy myself by blogging, going to the beach, and possibly seeing a movie (any recommendations?) Hopefully I will be able to blog more in the coming weeks.

I finally got a job

Just had my first day at the new job today and thank goodness it went really well. (The first few weeks are going to be a trial before I sign a contract.) At my last job I got there on the first day and one of my co-workers let me know that it was a horrible place to work, I would be lucky to ever get paid on time (which she was correct about) and that the office wasn’t run very well.

Hopefully all will go well and in a few weeks time I will sign the contract. Thanks for all the good luck you sent my way.

Job hunting

I’ve been unemployed going on three months now and I’ve started going mad. You would think sitting around all day doing nothing and still getting a nice paycheck from unemployment (and all the backpay I’m still owed from my previous job.) should be easy and enjoyable but it’s really not. I’ve become a major procrastinator, things that usually take me a few minutes can now take hours because I figure I’ve got all day anyways. I enjoyed being kept occupied for the majority of the day (and I was always able to use work as an excuse to get out of things such as simchas of people I’m not close with, trips, chores, etc…)

I finally got fed up and since Pesach I’ve gone into high gear with my job search. I’ve been so busy following leads, sending resumes and going to interviews that everything else has kind of fallen by the wayside. I haven’t spoken to my friends in weeks and I definitely haven’t had time to blog.

I actually have two serious prospects at the moment. Hopefully I’ll get at least one of them. One I’m still waiting for an answer to a few questions I had and the other has offered me the job. The one that offered me the job sounds more convenient and interesting for me so I will probably go with that one. (I have to give an answer soon preferably today Friday.) I’m about 99% sure I will accept it but you never know I still have a few hours.

Once I start working I should have plenty to write about since new jobs generally present many interesting new things (and people) to write about.

Busy…

I keep meaning to post something about Pesach but I just got so busy I don’t have any time. Hopefully next week my schedule will clear up and there will be a few posts coming.

See you on the other side… (of Pesach)

I Probably won’t be posting anything until after Pesach (unless it’s a really boring chol hamoed) Were going to have about 25 people staying with us so there should be some interesting posts coming. I’ve taken off moderation (please behave.) Wishing everyone a happy healthy Pesach.

Peasach (non-gebrokts) recipes

This post is in response to the request I got for my comment on Frumsatire about good non-gebrokts cake recipes.

Blondies – This is my familys favorite cake by far we can never make enough and it always goes pretty quickly. We also make this one year round. This taste good warm but we usually freeze it and then let it defrost and eat it while it’s still cold. This also cuts down on crumbs.

You will need an ungreased 9×13 pan. Set your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 45 min. – 1 hour.

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup oil

3 spoons or 1 package vanilla sugar (the containers come with a spoon)

1 cup potato starch

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 6oz. bag ground filberts (nuts)

Pour into pan and sprinkle 1 cup chocolate chips on top. (we usually mix half the cup in with the batter so that they get inside too.)

Chocolate nut cake - a very rich moist cake

you will need a greased spring form pan for this. Set your oven to 325 – 350 degrees and bake for 45 min. – 1 hour.

7 eggs

1/2 pound semi sweet chocolate

1/2 cup hot water with 2 tablespoons instant coffee

1/2 package ground walnuts or filberts

1 cup sugar

Seperate 6 eggs and beat egg whites stiff.

Add 7th egg to yolks and mix yolks with sugar.

Melt chocolate in hot coffee and add to yolks.

Add nuts and then fold in egg whites.

Pour into pan and place in oven.

Hope you enjoy. we have a few more but I can’t find the recipes at the moment maybe I’ll post more later.

Pesach Reading

After a self-imposed hiatus from the internet in order to finish cleaning my room and car for Pesach I finally did it. My room and my car are both completely spotless and I even managed to do some baking (which I hate so I consider it a really big deal.) So now I am ready to move on to the next step in my Pesach preparations, creating a reading list.

I love reading I have since I was quite young. According to my mother I taught myself at the age of 5, while everyone else was busy learning the alphabet. I used to read anything I could get my hands on it didn’t really matter if it was well written or not but as I got older I slowly began to mature in my taste, and developed a passion for well written books.

The past few years I’ve been unable to find the time to read as much as I would like, so I always enjoy it when yom-tov comes around (especially a 3 day yom-tov.) It is a Pesach ritual of mine, starting around a month before to come up with a list, (generally between 10-15 books) of what I would like to read over Pesach. I usually end up reading at least 8 of these depending on the length of each. So without further ado here is my list for this year.

1.    Beautiful Boy – A father’s journey through his sons meth addiction. It’s already overdue but I plan to hold onto it until after Pesach and just pay the fines.

2.    The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – This was originally going to be Atlas Shrugged but due to length I decided to start with something shorter.

3.    A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss – I’ve had this one sitting on my desk for close to 3 months now (I haven’t gotten around to it yet because I had too many library books still waiting to be read.) Both my mother and sister claim that it’s an amazing book and I usually love anything to do with history so it should be an interesting read.

4.    The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold – The same author as The Lovely Bones one of my favorite books. I haven’t read anything else by her but I’m really excited to get started on this one.

5.    The Lost City by Henry Shukman – An adventure story that somehow involves ancient Amazonian civilizations (that’s what hooked me I love anything to do with ancient civilization especially Egyptian, Greek, or Roman.)

6.    The Wanderer’s Tale by David Bilsborough – A fantasy novel that sound’s like something along the lines of Tolkien who’s books I really enjoyed.

7.    Dead Beat by Jim Butcher – I’m a sucker for sci-fi/fantasy (wonder what a psychologist would say about that?) I read a few of his previous books in the Dresden files series and while not the most well written of books I kind of enjoy them anyways.

8.    Anthony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough – As I said before I love anything to do with history, especially ancient civilizations.

9.    The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards – I have this on hold at the Library and I really want to read this one so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will come in on time. From the reviews this sounds like it has all the makings of a great book with a very complex plot and characters.

10.     The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – This one is also on hold, hopefully it will come in on time. I know the movie was supposed to be really good but I don’t like to watch the movie before I read the book, it usually ends up ruining it for me.

11.     Event by David Lynn Golemon – This book has everything myths, legends, history, sci-fi. I haven’t really heard anything about this one and I never heard of the author before but I saw it on the shelf and it sounded interesting.

So that’s my reading list for this Pesach. If you have a favorite let me know I’m always open to suggestions. In case I don’t get to any more posts I would like to wish a Chag Sameach to everyone out there reading this.

Hidden surprises…

The one and only thing I love about Pesach cleaning is that I always manage to find some random junk that I used to consider important but somehow it either became lost or relegated to the bottom of the heap to be forgotten about until just such a day like today. The first thing I found that fell into this category was an old Bop-it pen I had gotten for Chanukkah two years ago (from a young cousin.) For the first few months it sat in a prominent position on my desk being used as both a pen and as a time waster (a very fun for me, annoying for anyone listing toy.) The next thing I came across was an old drawing dummy I bought a year ago with the intention of displaying it in different creative poses depending upon my mood. (Never happened though it stayed in the same boring position I bought it in and somehow made it’s way into a junk pile underneath my desk so that I forgot I even had it.)

I also found five old flash drives, three of them belonging to my mother (whom I had informed that I had no clue where they might be when she questioned me regarding their whereabouts six months ago.) Then there were the two full two-hundred each stacks of old unmarked CD’s (going back at least 5-6 years) each containing only one or two files and in order to find anything important I will have to go through each and every one.

I found a whole stack of an outdated version of my resume under a pile of old bills that had miraculously been paid even though I don’t remember taking care of them, and multiple versions of my business card with my old logo on them. I found a whole stack of Instyle magazines from 3 years ago and had a good laugh wasting time looking at what used to be in style before throwing them in the trash.

In the bottom drawer of my dresser I came across a bag that seemed to contain some kind of dead animal. I was quite freaked out until I realized it was just a bag of hair extensions the hair dresser had requested I use for my sisters wedding (I have very thin hair and she claimed it would look too empty without the additional hair.) It’s actually really creepy looking kind of like a wig when it’s not on a head.

Deep in the back of my closet, where I throw all the old pairs of shoes that are no longer in style and that I’ll never wear again (yet can’t bring myself to throw out for sentimental purposes) I found an old pair of cowboy(girl) boots that I wore for Purim two years ago and completely forgot about. I also found a few pairs of really chunky platform shoes from my high school days (at that time they were all the rage, in fact when I was in 12th grade the school started coming out with rules against “chunky” shoes.)

There may still be a few more hidden surprises as I still haven’t finished cleaning. I still have part of my closet and then I have to clean the stuff that made it’s way onto the floor because I couldn’t find anywhere else to put it. What’s the craziest or most surprising thing you ever found while Pesach/spring cleaning? Let me know I know I’m not the only one who let’s the clutter get out of hand.

Anyways enough procrastinating it’s back to work. Happy Pesach cleaning.

Sometimes being happy is enough

I met an old friend the other day in the pizza store. The last time I saw her was a few months ago and the time before that probably close to two years. Growing up she went through a very tough time. Her parents, extremely Yeshivish (supposedly), were emotionally abusive and every child in her family has issues that even a secular person would be shocked at. She claims she was molested and raped when she was young and that she started doing drugs in elementary school. I say claims because she is known to be a compulsive liar so I can never know how much of what she tells me is true. Until getting kicked out of high school she was so frum she wouldn’t wear denim or even wear pants to bed. After getting kicked out though she went through a really dark time. She became completely irreligious and depressed and tried to commit suicide three times (and were not talking bottle of pills, the stuff she tried was hardcore.) She was also a cutter, I saw the scars on her arms many, many times. As a teenager I never really knew how to deal with someone with such issues, especially a friend. School never covered topics like drugs, depression and suicide.

These past two times I saw her were different though, instead of a depressed junkie I greeted by a clean, happy person who had finally gotten her life back on track. No she isn’t religious but is that really so important? I keep getting updates from people who for some reason felt it necessary to inform me every time they see her in pants, or with her boyfriend (as if it was any of my business and like I could do something about it.) My reply is always the same isn’t the fact that she’s happy more important than what she’s wearing. For years she was a miserable wreck her life was going nowhere fast and had she kept it up she probably wouldn’t be alive today. I really don’t think it’s so far fetched to believe that happiness is better. I mean at least this way she has a chance for a normal life. Yet for some reason every time I mention it I get stares and headshakes, a few people even dared to argue that no it’s better to keep shabbos and kosher than to be a happy well adjusted person. I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who feels this way. Is it really so hard to believe that for some people religion isn’t necessarily the right thing at the point they are at in their lives? Hopefully one day in the future she will be able to look at religion and not see every painful thing she had to experience at the hands of these supposedly “frum” people. (Hell, if I had G-d forbid gone through even half the things she has I doubt I’d want to be religious either.) For now though isn’t it enough that she’s alive and happy?

Spring Awakening

So I’ve been unemployed for a about a month and a half now and I’ve been sitting around doing nothing. It was really starting to get to me and I finally got fed up yesterday and decided to get off my butt and go visit my friend in the city.
After much debating we decided to go see a play on Broadway, we got there about a half hour before it started (I must have tried at least six times to plan in advance and of course the only time it actually works out is the one time I don’t plan ahead.) We managed to get student rush tickets to the musical Spring Awakening for $27 each (an amazing price.) Now I had no idea what the play was about but my friend informed me that it was amazing and I would love it. Of course she conveniently forgot to mention the sex scene and other sex related scenes, in fact that is actually what the whole play is based on, teenage self discovery. She claims she forgot about them. (Now if you think watching a sex scene in a movie theater is uncomfortable try watching it happen live.) There I was sitting next to my friend and rubbing elbows with the guy to my right all dressed up and out with his girlfriend and all of a sudden the two main characters start getting it on onstage. Now call me a prude but I really have no interest in seeing such a display and hastily averted my eyes looking everywhere but at what was happening onstage. I began to examine the decoration of the theater not an easy feat in the dark (and at this point it was quite dark with the only spotlight focused on the one thing I didn’t want to see.) After that I began people watching (one of my favorite pastimes); first I studied those sitting in the side boxes I wondered what the view must be like from that angle. (We had great seats on right in the middle of the front row of the balcony with an amazing view of the stage.) I then moved on to watch the people below us, there was the guy two rows up and to the left who was busy picking his nose figuring no-one would see him in the dark, then there was the couple passionately making out so much so that it almost matched what was going on onstage. In short I was looking at everything but what was going on onstage.
Embarrassment (and sex scenes) aside it really was a great play. The best part about it was definitely the music, I already ordered the soundtrack. The play takes place in the 1800’s yet is set to rock music and oddly enough it seems appropriate. The story is about a group of teenagers growing up in 1891 Germany. Young and naïve and not knowing the consequences of their actions the main female character gives into temptation without realizing that her actions can and eventually do lead to pregnancy. Another character ends up committing suicide, and yet another hides her abuse at the hands of her father. Even though this play was written in the 1890’s much of it is still very relevant to teenagers nowadays. In fact many parallels can be drawn between this play and the sheltered Jewish community. In fact this story can be used as an example of what can happen when a child is too sheltered. At the end of the play when the mother realizes her daughter is pregnant and yells at her the daughter answers but how is that possible I’m not married? (her mother had earlier told her that babies where born when a husband and wife loved each other and didn’t give her further details, this was actually a really funny scene.) I was having flashbacks to those BY girls who went through their lives knowing nothing until they attend kallah classes. It’s hard enough to deal with hormones when you know what’s going on and that it’s perfectly normal. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for those that don’t know what is going on with them and don’t realize that everyone is going through the same thing. Anyways this play is definitely worth seeing despite the uncomfortable scenes and I’m glad I got the chance to see it (because if I had known before I probably wouldn’t have gone.) The beginning had a lot of very funny moments and I felt a real connection with the characters, the actors were great. There was also a really sad ending which I love I know it’s weird but I always enjoy a sad ending more than a happy one (maybe I’m just to skeptical but sad is definitely more realistic.) Sorry this post was so long but there was just so much to say (and this isn’t even half of it.)