First Time at the Farmers Market

With my new job comes this lovely little perk called "summer hours". Basically, Monday through Thursday you work an extra hour each day and then you get every other Friday off. For a grand total of 5 Friday's off throughout summer. It's fantastic! 

I enjoyed my first Friday off this past Friday. I spent the day catching up on cleaning. Boring I know, but I did have family coming over on Saturday for a Fathers Day cookout so I figured I better make the main floor presentable. 

Besides wasting my whole day doing laundry and cleaning, I decided to do some baking to take to the local Farmer's Market. Since I have a fairly large garden and I'm hoping to take some extra produce to the Farmers Market later this summer I wanted to check it out before hand. 

I baked up some super simple peanut butter dog treats as well as some super delicious human treats that I like to call chocolate chip cookies. (P.S. I'm a CCC addict. The first step is admitting the problem right?!) 

Guess which is which!

I decided to give my  Grandma, who is a notorious bread maker in my home town, a call and see if she wanted to bake a few loaves I could sell for her. She contributed 8 still warm from the oven loaves of bread. My mom also added in some of her beautifully iced sugar cookies and I threw in a couple jars of my homemade apple butter. I was all set and ready for the sale. 

Since you only have to pay 5 bucks for a space I figured the worst case scenario was I lost 5 dollars and gained a few extra pounds eating the cookies. Luckily the FM had a decent crowd during the 5-7 time period and I sold 6 loaves of Grandma's bread and several packages of both kinds of cookies and dog treats plus almost all the apple butter.

The next day my parents were having a garage sale so my mom sold almost all the rest of my homemade goodies. Now don't get me wrong, I still ate my fair share of cookies but I'm okay with that:)

I spent the rest of the long weekend hanging out at home cleaning up the house and having a cookout. My mom and I did manage a mini movie marathon and watched The Fault in Our Stars and Maleficent on Sunday. I haven't read The Fault in Our Stars yet which I hate because I always prefer reading the book first but I thought the movie was excellent and I'm pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye by the end of it. Maleficent was also good but not quite what I was expecting. Overall I would recommend TFIOS if you can only pick one. 

Hope you all had a good weekend! Maybe I'll share my dog treat recipe soon. 

Unemployment

Where to start... I was jobless through all of November, December, and January. Being laid off is depressing I will tell you. 

At first it's kind of nice, like a vacation, then you realize it's not a vacation (at all) since you can't spend money, because you don't know how long the vacation will last. And you still have bills.  

Thankfully Seth and I had saved for a rainy day and luckily we didn't really have to touch it. I got the chance to feel what it was like applying for unemployment weekly. I hated being asked what I did during those months and having to tell people I was unemployed (laid off) and I would always feel the need to give people lots of extra details so they didn't just think I was lazy.

Unemployment helped Seth and I to focus on our spending and learn a little lesson in needs versus wants, which I think we all need reminding of every now and then;) Let's face it, we all have way more wants than needs and I think we both learned to appreciate things a little more.  

We definitely stepped out of our boxes a little bit and challenged ourselves to try new things. I pretty much quit grocery shopping except for the produce and milk and such and tried new recipes with products we already had or used up things we had avoided for way too long.  

The house was kept super clean and dinner was often made and ready when Seth got home from work. Since I was home all day it was easy to find time for these things in between applying for jobs.  

Unemployment can be stressful for sure, but I'm glad it happened when it did. As I've said before I think everything happens for a reason and I think the reason for losing my job is that I was looking for a new job at the right time. I found a new job. A job that (so far anyway;) I love. A job that is more me and that appreciates it's employees and who they are and what they do. And I'm happy.

Happy Friday! (It's nice to enjoy Fridays again, weekends don't mean much when everyday is the same)

I'm BAAAACKKK! (I hope)

It's about time to get back into this whole blog thing (I think anyway). I've been gone for way too long and I really miss it. I think life has finally settled down and now maybe I can figure out a new routine for writing. 

I'll try to do some recaps through the next couple posts to get you all (all...more like 3 maybe?) up to speed on what you missed in my ever so fascinating life. Have no fear I'm sarcastic as ever and willing to share:)

I don't want to get too carried away on my first post back so I'll just leave you with this little tid-bit...

My husbands new nickname for me is  pillow princess. Why you ask? Maybe because we have 5 pillows on our bed and I use 4 of them. I personally don't see a problem with it but apparently he does.

Soon to come...

My new job (amazing-sauce)
Adventures in puppy land
Recipes I invented while jobless for months
And much much more!

Walking Disasters - the story of us

Well, I guess it's about time I end my pity party and get back into the swing of things. Before I catch the ole' blog up on the happenings over the last month I thought I would share a short story.

I like to call this one "we are walking disasters".

Somehow over the weekend Seth managed to lose his wallet. The last place we know he had it was at the gas station on Saturday night. We filled up with fuel and left and he didn't realize he was missing it until Monday morning when he got up to go to work. Since I'm still unemployed I spent the majority of my day (after an interview) on a hunt for a long lost wallet. I scoured every corner of the house, yard, shop, Seth's truck and the side of the road from our house into town and at the gas station. I called the police station to see if it had been turned in. Nothing. Plus no charges on our credit cards so we are assuming it's really lost and not found by someone else.

Tuesday, Seth left work early to come home and look a little more before we went to the bank and DMV to get new credit cards and him a new drivers license. He was supposed to go out of town this morning (that changed) so he figured he would need those things. Somehow in one of our many stops at the gas station, post office, police station, the in-laws (for his birth certificate), the bank, and dmv, I managed to lose the keys to my car (Seth was driving which is why I didn't notice until we were home).

This is the part where you figure out why I refer to us as "walking disasters." I mean seriously, who loses their keys when searching for their wallet. Me apparently.

So, this morning I woke up and called the post office. Nope, they don't have my keys. Since they obviously took zero time to look for them I figured I better head into town to retrace our steps and see if I can find them. I stopped into the post office where I thought I saw them on a counter until realizing that some lady had just set her keys down and they weren't mine. Bummer. Next I headed to the gas station I have visited the last 3 days looking for the wallet. Frank, the owner asked me "find the wallet?" I embarrassingly had to admit no and now I've lost my keys. I'm sure he thinks we are two fries short of supersized but he said, "are they Honda keys?" This is when the skies opened up and the angels sang "hallelujah, hallelujah" and I told him yes! And that's where I found my lost keys.

It's been a good day. Now, if only we can find the dang wallet.

7 QT {21} - I lost my job

Well, it's been quite a week. One I wasn't expecting at all. For the sake of linking up at Conversion Diary I guess I will give you the 7 Quick Takes version.

1. After months of communicating via our blogs, emails and text messages I finally got to meet a blog friend in real life, on Saturday. Her name's Kala and she blogs over at My Breezy Room. My mom and I met up with her at First Fridays in the West Bottoms in her adorable furniture booth at Bella Patina. I think we managed to make it through without any awkwardness and I think we both hope to go on another blate (blog date) soon. I realize I'm not giving our first blate the attention it deserves but check out Kala's blog and she will give you a great rundown of meeting and discovery that neither of us was a serial killer. It's a good read, I promise!

Check out her booth at First Fridays! It's awesome:)

And on to the more depressing...

2. Monday rolled around and I headed into work feeling well rested because of the time change. I walked in and my boss immediately called me into his office. Obviously that was weird but I just shut the door and sat down. He then proceeded to tell me "where gonna have to let you go, we just don't have enough work to keep you busy". At that point I just sat and stared at him with what I'm sure was a look of shock and disbelief. It honestly was one of those out of body experiences where it's like you're looking down on what's happening but the voices are muffled because I have almost know idea of what he said after the first sentence. Something about healthcare and all that jazz but I didn't really catch it. 

Once he finished talking he asked if I had any questions and so I just asked if it was only because they didn't have enough work that I was being let go and he asked if I would disagree. I guess I was extra surprised because I have been nothing but busy the last month. Our business really picks up before the holidays and I thought we were doing well. I guess I thought wrong. 

3. I never thought I would be 27 years old with a college degree and filing for unemployment.

4. The past couple days I've spent hours at my computer searching and applying for jobs. Some seem okay and some sound dreadful. At this point, I don't know that I even want to go back to work in an office environment. I honestly feel pretty lost and not sure which direction to look. Thankfully I have a husband who has been amazingly supportive and encouraging. 

5. I guess it's times like these I'm thankful I have Faith that God has a plan for me even though I have no idea what that plan is. My Grandma (the one that freezes everything) always says if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. I guess he's laughing now. Maybe this is his way of telling me that he has plans for me and he will help me when the time comes. For now, I'm waiting, praying and applying. 

6. I've officially been a desperate housewife all week. 

7. If anyone in the NE Kansas area has a job opening that I might qualify for feel free to let me know :) For now, I guess I'm a full-time blogger and housewife.