Week Four, wrap up

Today is the last day of week 4. I have been doing pretty well staying on task, though not 100%. I have applied to a different job each week for 4 weeks. Though I only heard back from one so far (they had already hired someone), I am still hopeful that something will come up. It has to, right? In the meantime, I have to remember to be thankful for the job I do have.

I tried my first recipe from my new cookbook. I tried the spinach lasagna with roasted cauliflower-tofu "ricotta" and homemade marinara. Here is a pic from before it went in the oven:

It looks pretty tasty, huh? Well, I have to say it was kind of...bland. I tried another recipe to go along it as a side - shaved brussel sprouts! I decided to add sweet potatoes to the brussel sprouts and I have to say I like the idea of thinly sliced brussel sprouts. They cook soooo much faster, which means I can eat them sooner. Not sure if I would make the lasagna again (at least not without adding, um, flavor).

Veggie overkill?

I was working on February's to-do list, and while it looks mostly the same as January, I have added some more sit-ups, so I am going from 25 a night to 50. I've managed to do all my cardio and weight tasks, and I am beginning to grow little arm muscles!!!

Another thing I added was a February project. If anyone has been to my house they may have noticed that surrounding my house there is a 4 brick-high retaining wall about three feet wide all around the front of my house. I have no idea when they were put in, but the wall has seen better days. The top layer of bricks have come away from the mortar, and weeds are growing all over them. So, I have decided to take down the retaining wall, reuse the bricks, and pull out a lot of the crap that is planted around the house. It's going to be a big project, but it needs to be done.

I have made progress with the fiddle. I now can play the first 8 notes from Joy to the World! I find this to be a huge milestone, that I can play something that sounds like music instead of just the normal screeching of drowning rats. Maybe one day when I get a little better, I will post a video.

Oh, one more goal for February: go to bed by 10:30. It's going to take me some time to get used to that, so each week I am going to cut 15 minutes off my bedtime until I get to 10:30. For whatever reason, I am dreading this goal....and on that note, good night, dear reader!

The slaughter of innocent brussel sprouts!

Oh, how I love thee!

I really do have an obsession with brussel sprouts. So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase the above during my most recent trip to the grocery store. Aren't they lovely?

I came home from work to a pretty good mail day. Some books I ordered from Amazon had made it, and I also got some other goodies, include a US Census Community Survey packet, which claims my response is required by law. I am pretty excited about my new cookbook, Isa Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction. I flipped through it pretty quickly and it looks like it has some decent recipes in there, so this weekend might be experimentation week in my kitchen....yay! Maybe it will help me branch out from the brussel sprouts I've been obsessed with.

In other news, I had a great G-chat session/fiddle lesson with the lovely H. We learned about notes. I am glad there is someone who knows as little as I do who can suffer through this with me. I really have no experience with musical instruments at all. ZERO. Zilch. I just learned what the difference was between whole, half, quarter, etc...notes. Yup. Starting with nothing here. It's fun. I've enjoyed it so far.

In other news, it has been a week without shampoo. I have absolutely no complaints so far:

I never said I was photogenic.

My hair hasn't been greasy feeling, no weird itching...in fact, no real difference other than my hair seems better to me. I might just be thinking that because I want to think that though. I think it will take more than a week to see if this cures my hair woes. But I wanted to give you an update, and record this for the future.

Oh, and I got someone out of jail today. That always makes my day. :)

The quiet life

Are you looking for meaning in your life? In your work? That is a dangerous road to travel on. Here is what you need: you need to get out of the office, away from a computer, away from the people that surround us in this backwards little town we call a city. YOU NEED NATURE. You need quiet streams and the chirping of birds you can't see. You need moss and decay, dead leaves, sticks of trees.
People, eh, they are pretty darn special. The planet? It's everything, and  it doesn't need us one bit, and we can't stand it. We must try to control the uncontrollable, mold it, use it, give it a value we can comprehend.
....
I sent that to a friend of mine who was in the midst of an existential crisis relating to her work. After I sent it I re-read it, and I realized that I am the one in desperate need of all of the above.  I like the quiet life. I like simple things. I crave them, like an addiction. A physical need for quiet and calm and the simple life.

I know that for some people, they want the chaos, the busy life, projects and plans, shopping and hanging out with friends, constantly on the go. The older I get, not only do I care less for those types of things, I actually have an aversion to them. 

Oh, but it's more complicated than words can describe...

Sometimes I feel stuck in this town, secluded, holed away in my private little world, time just passing me by. There is so much more to life, so much more out in the world...It just seems so unattainable. I don't know how to get from point A to point B. Any advice? Anyone know? I want the quiet and I want something more, something that doesn't have a name. I guess I need to figure out what it is before I go looking for it...

Hail Seitan!

Greetings Reader!

So, today I got up around 8:30 and started up on my weekend cleaning list. I won't bore you with all the details, but I do have a confession to make. I hate taking compost out to the compost bin. I have no explanation for this, other than I am lazy and I hate stepping in dog poop, which invariably happens when walking in my backyard. So, instead of taking my compost outside when the jar gets full, I dump it in plastic grocery bags and put it in the freezer. I use a bag until it gets full, and then I start another. Sometimes if a head of cauliflower goes bad, I just stick the whole thing in the freezer. Go ahead, judge me for my laziness. But anyway, I decided to take the many bags of frozen compost outside today. I figured if I wanted it to decompose in time for spring, the freezer was a bad place to keep it. Yeah yeah yeah.

So after dumping all the compost, my freezer looked empty and sad. The only thing left in there were blueberries from last summer and some other fruit for smoothie making. So, I decided I would fill it with a supply of homemade seitan! 

This is the log o'seitan "resting"

After it rested, I sliced it, and it looked like gingerbread

This is after boiling it for an hour or so.

 

The texture is not the best. I should have used a recipe

In other news, I have decided to start an experiment. I am going to give up shampoo. Or try to. We will see if this solves some of my hair woes, which are too numerous and boring to go into. Here is a pic of the results after the first shower without shampoo...for comparison down the road:

Not bad, eh? Let's see if I leave a grease spot on my pillow tonight.

And because everyone loves pictures, and because I don't have anything else to say, here is one for fun:

Drink, little bird, drink...

So, right before Christmas our bosses announced that we were going to switch over to a team system...meaning, instead of each of us getting all types of cases within our levels of experience, we were going to get specific types of cases based on which team we were on. I think there are six: minor felony, major felony, violent crime, criminal sexual conduct(CSC)/domestic violence, DUI, and drugs. They asked if we had a preference, and the only thing I said was that I would prefer to not be on the CSC team. Before this, I was handling everything from murder to CSC to lesser felonies, and the occasional misdemeanor case. Now I am on the drug team. There are three of us on that team. My caseload increased by about 100 clients, but the severity (measured by possible prison time folks are facing) of the charges on the whole has decreased, and I have a handful fewer clients in jail. All in all I like it pretty well. I have a feeling drug clients won't keep me up at night quite as much, though I did wake up at 5:30 the other morning because I realized I needed to call one of my clients about something. That was the first time in a month, which is a huge improvement.

The to-do list is getting tweaked this week. I am going to add 3 days of cardio/week and 5 sessions of fiddle practice. I feel like 3 days of cardio is on the light side, but I don't think I can regularly fit in 4 days at the gym. Once it warms up I will be out and about and it won't matter, but while I am going to a gym for my cardio I don't want to push it. I will adjust as needed. I've been counting fiddle practice even if it is just for 10-15 minutes, but I play pretty much every night so I figure I should get some credit for it.

Depeche Mode every day when I come home. It hasn't left the record player. I am soooo in love with that album. Best $10 I have ever spent.

I don't have much as far as updating goes. I haven't heard anything about the other two jobs I applied for. I need to find another one to apply for this weekend. Finding jobs to apply for is difficult in the NC/SC  region. I don't have a problem branching out. I'd go anywhere. Except Florida. Or Oklahoma. I'd like to get to Asheville though, or NC generally. I will settle for SC if I can find something awesome. Chances are I won't....

I just emailed my mom a picture of my new tattoo. I figure this way she can deal with her disapproval in the comfort and privacy of her own home.

You know what I have been totally obsessed with? Brussel sprouts with sweet potatoes:

Everything Counts....

Thanks for the day off from work, Martin...

So, I have been researching the glass bottles I found in the woods. In the picture just below, it seems the very left bottle, with the lines running across the top and bottom, is an old opium bottle.The two taller, flask-like bottles that say "Federal law forbids sale or re-use of this bottle" are post-prohibition liquor bottles. I am guessing the smaller bottles are medicine bottles, though I suspect the more angular bottle (front right just below) may be a food bottle, since there are no measurements embossed in the side.

I am sure there is so much more out there in the woods. I am definitely going to go back and dig around some more, with better shoes, gloves, and a trowel of some sort. I cut myself twice, because there is broken glass and pieces of metal everywhere on the hill, which is quite steep and slippery.

And here are a few pics from the Congaree Swamp.

So, I am officially on Week 3 of the Tackle 2011 Project (or whatever the hell it should be called). I had house guests this past weekend, so some of my daily goals didn't get accomplished. I am going to try to catch back up. I have caught up on my Spanish Lessons. I applied to two jobs last week, so I am going to use one of those to count for Week 3. All in all not too bad.

I am listening to Depeche Mode's 101 record, the one that was recorded live at the Rose Bowl. I found it yesterday at Papa Jazz. I have the film on VHS, and I have watched it sooooo many times. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to find it in the "new" bin at Papa Jazz (clearly, it's new in a relative sense). This album is making me pretty happy. It was a brilliant performance, the quality of the recording is amazing, and I think this album is in my top 5 for sure. I know some folks don't get my love of Depeche Mode. It is fairly limited to this time period of their existence, certainly doesn't extend to all Depeche Mode.

Ok, and last but not least, here is my new art:

Isn't he lovely? It's still a little irritated and red, but I think you get the idea.

OK kids. I am off to have a productive day. You do the same. Make it count.

Broken glass..

I just drank an entire french press full of coffee all by myself...what better time to blog?

I want to start off commenting on how extremely awesome it is that H and B now live a mere 3.5 hours away. I also want to comment on how extremely awesome it is that they have decided to visit this weekend. I will admit that my daily checklist of to do has fallen to the wayside, but I will make up for it later.

Friday night after they got here we were going to check out Bill's Pickin' Parlor to listen to some bluegrass, but by the time we got there it was around 11PM and it looked like they were shutting down for the night. So, I decided to take them to the Art Bar for fun. After Art Bar we came back home and fiddled for a few hours.

Saturday we woke up too late to go to the Farmer's Market, so instead we had some biscuits and tempeh gravy. Last weekend Kevin B. told me about this place in the woods off the Riverwalk where the Olympia trash dump must have been years and years ago. So, we decided to take a walk in the woods and try to find it. After a short trek in the still snow covered woods, we hit gold. H and B and Emma and I dug in the dirt on a steep hill and walked away with some sweet finds - old glass medicine bottles, still intact....probably 50 or more years old. I haven't checked the patents yet to confirm their age. They are pretty dirty, so they have been soaking since we brought them home.

So, while we were out on the hill, my friend Darcy called me to tell us his big appointment fell through and he could fit us in. Fit us in for what, you might say? Tattoos. Oh yeah. So, after cleaning up from digging in the refuse pile, we headed over to Divine Street Tattoo and H and I were inked. It's been....oh, about 12 years since my last tattoo, so I was a little nervous. I let H go first. She was a champ, and got a pretty amazing tattoo. Then it was my turn, and after going back and forth between locations, I finally committed to a fairly exposed placement. I will let you all wonder and guess....at least until it heals up a little and I post a pic.

Now we are heading to the Congaree Swamp....more later.

a fiddle and a fix

So, today I fulfilled the weekly requirement to do something new, and I think I made up for last week as well.

First thing I did was restring my violin (!!)  and then use my fancy new tuner to tune it! Yay! This is huge, cause I am a music dummy. Totally clueless when it comes to anything that has to do with instruments. So, this is kind of a big deal. Now I just gotta learn how to play it....

The other new thing that happened is not necessarily a good thing. So, it's been freezing here, we have had snow (enough to shut down my work for 2.2 days!), it's been cold. The snow has not really melted much...but anyway. I get home from work, start doing some laundry. I notice the water pressure seems way low....I shut off the washer, walk around....hear a strange noise coming from outside....so I go out there, and of course my outside water spigot has blown off the pipe and there is water all over the yard. I conclude that the pipes froze and burst.  I panic, call a bunch of plumbers, some friends. Freak out. No one is home, no one is calling me back...I go back out in the yard, take a look around, and I realize that the thing isn't necessarily broken...just one of the coupling thingamajigs had frozen and split in two. Around this time one of the plumbers calls back, tells me it would be $85 just to come out to my house, plus whatever it will take to fix whatever is broken. I tell him I will call him back.

So, if you have been paying attention, I am very careful how I spend my money. I don't do it lightly, and if I think I can fix something/do something myself, I will. So, I take the pieces of pipe and head to Lowe's. Fast forward 45 minutes and $5.05 later, and the problem is fixed. Whew. It's still dripping a little, so I will have to go out tomorrow when the sun is out to tighten it down. Hopefully it will be okay.

I will say this about the plumbing fiasco...it's times like these that it would be nice to have another person around. Yeah, I like being all sorts of self-reliant and whatnot...but it would be nice to have someone around to laugh about all the shit that happens, and to hold the flashlight for ya...someone with arm muscles.

This ship is sinking...

So, yesterday my friend S emailed me a link to a recently published NYT article about law school, debt, and the job market. Here is the link if you are interested: Law School is a rip-off. It is an interesting article for sure. I have to be honest....I get a sinking feeling in my gut whenever I hear someone mention they want to go to law school. I would try to talk anyone out of going, or wish them the very best if they didn't want to listen to reason.  I know it is sort of taboo to talk about money, but anyone who knows me knows that I talk about it all the time. The conversations take this basic format:

Friend : "Hey Ashley, you want to go out to dinner/bar/movie?"
Me: "Eh, I can't do anything until payday"

But really, I can't do anything on payday, or after payday, or anytime in the next 10-25 years. It's sad. Sometimes I get so tired of making excuses why I can't do anything that I just don't return phone calls/texts. I am utterly blown away by most of my coworkers, folks who go out to lunch every single day, who regularly go to happy hour, and don't pay anything towards their loans. I hear them on the phone, telling the loan officers they just don't have anything to give them....

So, am I just a sucker because I make an effort to pay down my loans? Get this: I have a significant amount of both federal and private loans, all of which are in repayment. I have been paying down my private loans at a 30 year rate. That means I will be 60 something years old when I finish paying it off. I just consolidated my Federal loans (except for the Perkins, since as a PD I qualify for loan cancellation on that one, which was 14K to begin with). I have been making monthly payments on my private loans since the Fall of 2007. It is now January 2011, and as of this month's payment, I will have paid down all of the accrued interest and will finally start paying down principal. 3 fucking years. Thousands of dollars down the drain. Interest accruing every second of every day.

tick. tock. cha-ching.

I am not married. I have a mortgage. I pay for my own existence. Alone. With my crappy public defender salary. I hoard whatever money I can. I have a savings account. I have an IRA. I have a state retirement plan. I am trying the best I can. My mom helps me out a lot. She paid for the new battery for my car. She gives me $40 from time to time. Once, she paid off the entirely of one of my loans. But, she doesn't have a job. She is still living off whatever money my dad left her when he died. That money is a finite sum and has to last her the rest of her life. I don't come from a family with money. I come from a single parent without a job. No one is going to bail me out if I can't do this myself.

I guess I should be happy I have a job? Ignore the fact that even though I am making more money than before I went to law school,  I am 100 times worse off financially? I am happy I bought a house 9 years ago, before law school was ever on my radar. I couldn't buy one now. Hell, my mortgage payment is beans next to my student loan payment.

eh. So there is my sob story. My current life revolves around the money I don't have. This job search I am on stems from more than a desire to do something different.

obviously....

This is what people look like while studying for the bar.

Week 1, follow up

Update Resume
Apply for job

I will say that I fell short this week on trying something new (unless I want to start counting things like helping my cousin learn the 4 steps of reconciliation with god, which I don't). I was inspired a bit by my friend Dave. He and I exchanged a number of emails about trying to modify behavior and create daily/weekly routines. His theory is to try for the minimum, but do it everyday. The theory is that eventually it will become routine, and then you can add to it or not (though it will take longer to reach certain goals if you continue to do the minimum). So, his examples were things like flossing teeth, doing 10 push ups a day, limiting TV watching to a certain amount each week....I liked his idea, so I started off thinking about what my goals were first, and then how to attain the goal each day/week etc.

And of course, I put flossing on the list, and I even made a dorky monthly spreadsheet that I printed out, so I can check things off each day (I've already done my Spanish lesson for the day!), because I am totally motivated by visual progress. It's like my savings account and automatic transfers. I get much more satisfaction when my smaller weekly transfer is deposited in my savings account than I would if I just dumped a lump sum in there every once in awhile. I check it quite often, and I can track my progress every month, and every year, and as long as I don't have an emergency need for the money, it just gets bigger. Another example: at work next to my desk are a number of torn sheets from yellow legal pads. Each one has the month on the top, the number of open cases I have, and how many clients I have in jail. I keep track of every single case I close, and what the disposition was. Each month I start a new piece of yellow paper. My first one is from Dec 2007. It helps motivate me to move my cases, to lessen my caseload...If couldn't actually see any progress, I would probably suffer a lot more.

Anyway....this weekend was pretty quiet. Just working on the job search.
How many weeks of job applications do you think it is going to take? Anyone want to bet?

Week 1

So, how is this project going to work? Will I be successful in trying new things, applying for jobs, learning Spanish? I have to be honest, this week has been super busy and my time to devote to this list of things I want to do has been limited. Excuses galore!

So, it is Saturday morning, and I am waiting for my buddy Joe to come over so we can walk to the All Local Farmer's Market. I love that "they" established this in my neighborhood. Folks from all over slum it every weekend to earn their cool points by shopping at this market. I will be honest, I don't go very often. While I love supporting local business and local agriculture, the amount of people present usually causes me some anxiety, or at least makes me want to get out of there ASAP. The prices are typical of a hip/urban farmer's market, which means they are pretty high. I still have this quarter million in debt I am trying to work off, so, my shopping is limited to cheap ass supermarkets. Sorry, cool police.

Gosh, I sound kind of bitter.

So, that is my plan for this AM. I will get back and work on the 2011 version of my resume (it looks a lot like my 2010 version in case you are wondering), and search for a job. Someone told me that SELC in Asheville was looking to hire 3 new attorneys, only the job posting has been taken down. That's okay. I found the old webpage by searching for the web cache, and I am going to apply anyway.

I will update this as the weekend progresses. Until then, enjoy this:

Back in South Carolina

Yup. Back in SC after a lovely trip to Carrboro to visit H and B. I must say, it was quite a productive little trip. Remember that battery of mine that wanted to die? The talented B used his manly expertise and knowledge base to hook me up with a new battery for a lot less than the mechanic's quote, and he was able to install it himself. What a guy! We also bought a few bookshelves for the spare bedroom/office and put them together. However, my favorite part of productive New Year 2011 was cleaning out the overgrown and many years neglected garden space. We put in a  compost corner and laid sheet mulching on the existing raised beds. Let that cook for a few months and those beds are going to be awesome for growing. Makes me realize I have a few more things to add to my own to-do list, such as:

- Sheet mulch the raised beds
- Add cold-weather raised bed to back yard
- plant 1 or 2 more blueberry bushes
- design wildflower garden

Now that I am back I have to really buckle down with my goals for the year. I am serious about making this year the most productive year ever. I will be back at work tomorrow, so many of these goals are going to be evening and weekend activities....It can be done, one thing at a time. I also want to get a fiddle. Let's hope my bid on Ebay wins!!!

Super fast so you can't tell I don't know what I am doing.